Missing the Target: Brazil's Agricultural Policy Indirectly Subsidizes Foreign Investments to the Detriment of Smallholder Farmers and Local Agribusiness

Currently there is controversy about the effect of direct foreign investment in the Brazilian agricultural sector, mainly due to the impact it has on small farmers, land use, the environment, and food security. In this context, Brazil finds itself in an even more delicate situation, since in order to remain a bulwark of the economy, Brazilian agribusiness depends heavily on public policies that directly impact its treasury. This suggests there is an indirect transfer of public resources to transnational companies involved in agribusiness production chains. This paper assesses the allocation of agricultural credits in Brazil and the market share held by Brazilian groups, vis-à-vis multinational corporations in the agribusiness supply chains. The study was carried out analyzing the three largest supply chains established in the country: soybean, corn, and cattle. Results reveal that 75% of the operating credit (crédito de custeio), which represents 60% of the total government credit in Brazil, goes directly to soybean, corn, and cattle farmers. Most of this subsidized credit budget goes to the soybean farmers, which are mostly encompassed by large farmers. Results also reveal that 76.1% of the soybean supply chain in Brazil is controlled by foreign multinational corporations. These findings suggest that resources invested in large farmers that take part in supply chains controlled by multinational foreign groups end up indirectly financing foreign companies to the detriment of local smallholder farmers and domestic agribusiness. This highlights the need for restructuring Brazilian agricultural policy in favor of family farmers and domestic agribusiness.

An overview of family fish farming: social, politics and food security implications

One characteristic that can be observed in family farming is the diversity of activities that are carried out concurrently on the property, providing and guaranteeing products for personal consumption or sale over the course of the year. Fish farming, an activity destined for fish production, is often one of these activities developed by family farmers and contributes to the access to quality protein for rural families and to increase income. Furthermore, the techniques used for fish production in family farming can foment a sustainable form of production. However, the lack of incentives regarding extension projects, marketing barriers, the lack of integration of traditional communities in decision making, and the absence of adequate technical information for the reality of rural properties make this activity limited and even ineffective in some regions. The encouragement of this activity could provide family farmers with improved economic conditions and food security and, consequently, the reduction of poverty in rural areas. The present study originated from a bibliographic review that addresses the activity of fish production and its impacts on the development of rural family activities, food security, and public and social policies for the maintenance, regularity, and quality of the final product.

Co-producing knowledge with family farming organizations: a citizen science observatory in Santarém, Brazilian Amazon

This data paper presents a survey conducted in a participatory manner in the territory of Santarém, in the Brazilian Amazon. The aim is to understand how global changes are affecting family farmers. In the study area, family farming has been confronted over the past 20 years with the rapid expansion of large-scale monocultures, especially soybean. As part of the Odyssea socio-environmental observatory, academic researchers and family farming organizations entered into a partnership to co-produce data that could be strategically useful for these organizations. A process of co-construction of the expectations allowed priorities to be established and the data collection strategy to be defined. Three levels of analysis were chosen in order to allow an integrated understanding of the dynamics of change: the Santarem Plateau territory, the rural community level (living place recognized by the farmers) and the farmers’ households. Twenty-one farmers, called community researchers, organized in 3 teams, applied a questionnaire through the KoboCollect smartphone application to 544 families in the municipalities of Santarém, Mojuí dos Campos and Belterra. Meetings were previously held in the rural communities and questionnaires were applied with representatives of 32 communities. Data was collected between April and June 2019. The community researchers and academic researchers then came together for two collective sessions of data analysis and interpretation in July and October 2019. Data was standardized and cleaned using SPSS software, between September and December 2019. The metadata and databases are available on the CIRAD dataverse.

Role of water infrastructure programs for family farmers in strengthening adaptive capacities to climate change: lessons from the Cisterns Program in Semi-arid Brazil

The semi-arid region of Brazil, marked by low human development indicators, has historically suffered from water scarcity, being the focus of public policies to reduce socioeconomic, water, and climatic vulnerabilities for more than a century. Among the recent initiatives, the Cisterns Program stands out as an attempt to guarantee water and food security for family farmers through the construction of social technologies for water storage, such as cisterns production. Thus, the research objective was to analyse the perception of farmers and institutional actors involved with the Program about the impact of the 2011-2018 drought on the functioning of cisterns and to discuss how water infrastructure programs can improve the adaptive capacity of farmers affected by climate change. Through semi-structured interviews with institutional actors at the regional/national level and with farmers in semi-arid Brazil in the years of 2017/2018, the results indicate that access to the social technology seems to strengthen the relationship between water and food security, and the specific capacity of farmers in dealing with climatic risks. We conclude with lessons and recommendations from the Brazilian experience that can be useful for actors from other semi-arid regions involved in water infrastructure programs.

Horta Comunitária e Quintais Produtivos da Comunidade Coelho Atikum Jurema e os Desafios da Covid-19 / Community Garden and Productive Backyards of the Coelho Atikum Jurema Community and the Challenges of Covid-19

A pandemia de Covid-19 gerou grandes mudanças na forma de comercializar os produtos da agricultura familiar. Foram dois anos de perdas e incertezas, mas também de redefinição das formas de produção e comercialização dos produtos da agricultura familiar. Neste contexto encontra-se a Comunidade Coelho Atikum Jurema, que, após anos de luta, implantou um projeto de horta comunitária e quintais produtivos. Neste espaço os agricultores familiares passaram a cultivar, de forma orgânica, e baseado na agricultura Atikum, espécies de olerícolas, mediante uma gestão coletiva e parental. Com o objetivo de identificar como a horta comunitária foi afetada pela Covid-19, realizou-se uma pesquisa descritiva, qualiquantitativa, no período de setembro a dezembro de 2021, onde foi possível identificar uma série de adversidades enfrentadas pela comunidade em adaptar-se ao mercado que surgiu como consequência das regras de convívio social, impostas em decorrência da Covid-19, as quais impactaram diretamente nas técnicas mercadológicas empregadas pela comunidade.---The Covid-19 pandemic generated major changes in the way in which family farming products are sold. There were two years of losses and uncertainties, but also of redefining the ways of production and marketing of family farm products. In this context is the Coelho Atikum Jurema Community, which, after years of struggle, implemented a project for a community garden and productive backyards. In this space, family farmers started to cultivate, organically, and based on Atikum agriculture, vegetable species, through collective and parental management. In order to identify how the community garden was affected by Covid-19, a descriptive, qualitative and quantitative research was carried out from September to December 2021, where it was possible to identify a series of adversities faced by the community in adapting to the market that emerged as a result of the rules of social interaction, imposed as a result of Covid-19, which directly impacted the marketing techniques used by the community.

“This Is Our Bank”: Agricultural Associations and Their Role in Two Swabian Villages in Satu Mare From the Regime Change to the Present

The study examines the impact of the agricultural associations of two Swabian settlements – Mezőfény (Foieni) and Mezőpetri (Petrești) – on the local economy and society. Agricultural associations played an important role at the beginning of the process of agrarian transformation after the regime change in Romania. The successor organisations of the socialist agricultural associations, now established on a voluntary basis, were able to counteract the impoverishment caused by the reparcelling or forced reparcelling of land during the long transitional period, while at the same time exploiting their monopoly position to prevent the emergence of individual and family farmers. The risk-averse, self-reliant economic model of the associations is reminiscent of the peasant, self-sufficient farm organisation. The associations can thus be seen as a very specific form of post-socialist post-peasant production systems.

Participatory characterization of the performance of corn landraces and commercial varieties with family farmers

The objective of this study was to compare the performance of landraces and commercial varieties to identify which variety is the most suitable for family farmers. The experimental design was a completely randomized block design with three replicates and 10 varieties. Qualitative and quantitative parameters were evaluated in the useful plot. The qualitative analyses were performed in the field with the participation of farmers, who scored the evaluated parameters as 1 - poor, 2 - average, 3 - good, or 4 - excellent. Quantitative analyses were performed without the participation of farmers. The data obtained (qualitative and quantitative) were subjected to analysis of variance, and the means were compared by the Scott-Knott test (p<0.05). The Pontinha and Adelaide varieties had the best quality variables in the farmers’ view. In the quantitative analysis, the landrace varieties showed similar results to the commercial varieties, but the highest yields were obtained with Pontinha and Adelaide. The results of the qualitative and quantitative assessments reaffirm the importance of farmers’ knowledge of corn cultivation in the studied municipality.

Cellular Changes in Buccal Mucosa from Farmers Exposed to Glyphosate / Alterações Celulares na Mucosa Bucal de Agricultores Expostos ao Glifosato

This study evaluated the sociodemographic characteristics and behavior of the oral mucosa epithelium exposured to the herbicide glyphosate of family farmers in Cerro Largo, RS, Brazil. 120 individuals were selected for social data collection through interviews. According to the results, most of the interviewees uses glyphosate between 5-10 years, being exposed between 30 minutes to one hour each application and applying the herbicide 1-2 times a year. After the interview, we selected the subjects to the Micronucleus (MN) test. For this test, oral smears were performed in three distinct regions (cheek, mouth floor and tongue edges) of 10 test subjects (exposed to glyphosate, non-smoker and non-alcoholic) and 10 control subjects. Results showed that glyphosate exposure increased the frequency of MN in the test group (p = 0.0002), as well as the frequency of other cellular alterations, such as brokenegg (p = 0.001), binucleation (p = 0.0001) and karyolysis (p = 0.0004). Based on these findings, the extent use of glyphosate may be causing damage to the oral mucosa epithelium and this might respond adaptively through cellular modifications.