Políticas públicas e produção orgânica: estudo de caso na Cooperativa Mista de Agricultores Familiares de Itati, Terra de Areia e Três Forquilhas

Abstract

Inserted in the large area of rural development, public policies to promote sustainability and organic production systems are recent in Brazil and, in general, are associated with policies that target family farmers. This work sought to analyze and comprehend the access and use of different public policies by farmers with organic production systems, observing some available institutions and arrangements. Farmers associated with the Mixed Cooperative of Family Farmers of Itati, Terra de Areia and Três Forquilhas, covering the three municipalities of the North Coast of Rio Grande do Sul, served as the object of study. The research used a qualitative approach and its theoretical framework is based on institutionalist theory, historical and sociological institutionalism, using the understanding of agroecology as a science and a new paradigm, in addition to the three generations of public policies for family farming and the Brazilian trajectory of building public policies for agroecology. Data come from secondary documentary research and semi-structured interviews arising from two field trips, applied to farmers and representatives of institutions. For data coding and analysis, Nvivo Software version 12 was used through categories, public policies, institutions and practices, and subcategories, searching for patterns through a cloud created with frequency of words and cluster analysis, observing the approximations between the terms, guiding the results found. Among the results, it was observed that there are public policies available to farmers, that the institutions of the governance arrangement have strong relationships and articulations influencing the decision-making of farmers who, in turn, adhere to organic production systems from a strategic point of view, but that national and state public policies are not adapted to reality, with impediments that result in no access to credit, insurance and lines intended for this public such as Pronaf Agroecology, together with these factors there is the lack of interest and lack of knowledge of local bank branches, being thus, such issues indicate a disconnection between public policies and the reality of farmers with organic production systems. It was also observed that farmers and representatives of entities providing technical assistance and rural extension present the cultural and ethical dimension of sustainability motivated by individual issues, covering not only the technical, environmental and economic dimensions, reinforcing the understanding that public policies for this sector must be able to cover the complexity avoiding simplistic models.