O sistema integrado na cultura do frango de corte na agricultura familiar em Coronel Ezequiel, RN: características e relações de poder.

Abstract

This dissertation aims to study the integrated system in the culture of broiler chicken in family farming, in Coronel Ezequiel (RN), in Serra de Santa Quitéria. This village was chosen for having presented, between 2011 and 2018, significant changes in the family production process arising from the adoption of this system. The objective of the dissertation is to understand the “characteristics” and “power relations” arising from the implementation of this productive strategy in this location. To this end, a conceptual discussion about the category of analysis “family farming” inserted in the agro-industrial system is carried out. This dissertation aims to identify both the vertical relations of power and economic dependence arising from the establishment of an “integrated partnership” and the social reproduction strategies used by these families. The dissertation brings up the debate on family farming inserted in the agro-industrial complex of the beef poultry production chain. Having the following question as the central guiding hypothesis of this work: was the search for economic stability, provided by a fixed income, the main element responsible for the adoption of the integrated system by family farmers? To this end, the methodology used in this work consisted of participant observation, with the use of semi-structured interviews guided by a script of “open and closed” questions, the adoption of a field diary and photographic records. Having as object of this work the family farmers, and the locus of the research the village of Serra de Santa Quitéria. The results found in this work demonstrate that: (1) the agro-industries located in Serra de Santa Quitéria have little financial capacity to maintain and expand their production, a characteristic that is evidenced by the successive failures of integrating companies prior to Bonaves; (2) that the production of broilers appears as an important contribution to the formation of the income of these families, however family farmers, understood as a category of social and political action, have their own logic of action and interests, and will trigger other strategies of survival and social reproduction, thus not failing to produce their temporary crops of beans, corn, cassava and passion fruit, as well as the creation of pigs, goats and other chickens; (3) the intensification of drought in the Microregion of Borborema Potiguar, especially in Coronel Ezequiel, impacted both the production of temporary crops of passion fruit, beans and broad beans, by farmers, as the increase in the price of water and corn bran , raising chicken production costs; (4) the impacts caused by the pandemic of the new coronavirus (covid-19), associated with the increase in the price of corn bran, directly affected the income of the Bonaves agro-industry (and as a consequence of the producers) with continuous stoppages in the production of broilers and uncertainty about future production by family farmers.