Inclusão social e diversidade socioeconômica na agricultura de base familiar: um estudo a partir do Programa Nacional de Produção de Biodiesel no nordeste semiárido.

Abstract

The central object of this research work is the analysis of productive inclusion and socioeconomic diversity in family-based farming. We privilege family farmers inserted in the National Program for the Production and Use of Biodiesel (PNPB), as an object and research problem. We questioned what the social inclusions and socioeconomic diversity experienced and produced in the scope of the production of biosubstitutes for fossil fuels and the emergence of biodiesel in the Brazilian energy matrix. We opted for a theoretical and reflective approach to family-based farming. However, we take as an approach a look from the farmers and their relations with the PNPB, paying attention to the debate on ruralities, the PNPB and the paying attention to the debate on ruralities, the PNPB and socioeconomic diversity, to build a typology of social actors, namely farmers family-based under the program. The research exercise showed the process of production and use of biodiesel from the energy matrix in the world and in Brazil. We were interested in knowing how a national biodiesel production policy affects the family-based farmers in the Semi-Arid region. The notion of socioeconomic diversity and the typology constructed are presented through a categorical analysis called “typology”. The methodology consisted of a case study in the municipality of Morro do Chapéu, in the Bahia state. The analyzed data were obtained with the use of qualitative techniques, such as interviews and documentary sources, and quantitative techniques, such as application of questionnaires and analysis of quantitative data in secondary sources. The results pointed to the occurrence of different types of farmers, among which Type 1 stands out, which brings together family-based farmers considered exclusive; Type 2, in which non eeclusive farmers are associated, but who mainly dedicate themselves to the production unit (and, therefore, they also dedicate their work time also to activities outside the production unit); Type 3, which brings together farmers with partial dedication of work, that is, less than 50%, of labor activity in the production unit, which leads to the demand for other activities outside of it to obtain income for the family; and Type 4, which are the farmers with no dedication of work to the family production unit. In the end, we concluded that the production of oilseeds for energy, and as a policy for income generation, was able to produce pluriactivity for farmers and ensure the livelihood of farming families, thus becoming a real possibility for public policy. However, it was also able to produce profound diversity among the farmers involved in the cultivation of oilseeds to produce biodiesel.