Marcio Gomes da Silva

As Cooperativas de Agricultura Familiar e o Mercado de Compras Governamentais em Minas Gerais

The recent policies of governmental purchases that emerged in the years 2000, such as the National Program of Food in Schools (PNAE) and the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), have brought significant opportunities for family agriculture cooperatives in Brazil to access markets. In spite of the possibilities that the PNAE and the PAA offer to family agriculture and its organizations, these programs also present a series of challenges, which involve different agents in the food acquisition process. This article intends to delineate the profile of family agriculture cooperatives in Minas Gerais and analyze their main difficulties to access the institutional market. We analyzed 19 diagnostics carried out in 2011 in family agriculture cooperatives from different regions of Minas Gerais State. In spite of the access to the local markets in both regional and municipal scopes, it was identified that there are issues related to technical assistance, sanitary adaptation, management and logistics that hinder the access of these cooperatives to such policies in the big centers of Minas Gerais.

Mudanças Organizacionais em Empreendimentos de Agricultura Familiar a partir do Acesso ao Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar

This paperwork examines the organizational changes that have occurred in the family farming enterprises from the county of Espera Feliz (Minas Gerais State) through the operationalization of actions of the Programa Nacional de Alimentacao Escolar (PNAE). The case of the Cooperativa da Agricultura Familiar e Solidaria de Espera Feliz (Coofeliz), of Espera Feliz (Coofeliz), was analyzed from the economical sociology approach to identify and understand the changes that occur as more people participated in PNAE. The analysis allowed identifying processes of productive organization of the cooperative members and the cooperative management organization that were significantly affected by the set of rules and procedures established by the program. The institutional news promoted by the program influenced the emergence of organizational innovations, whose main example was the “Vale Solidario”, created to supply the payment for farmers due to the lack of working capital. The relationship established between cooperative members and the agents involved in the food acquisition process for school feeding allowed the creation of market standards closer to the family farmer’s reality. In the end, the accessibility to PNAE also caused changes in the cooperative members’ production head, in the sense of greater productive diversification, instead of the specialization focused in a commodity.

Relações e estratégias de (des)envolvimento rural: políticas públicas, agricultura familiar e dinâmicas locais no município de Espera Feliz (MG)

This paper presents the analysis of the links between family farming organizations and rural development policies. The research was conducted in the municipality of Espera Feliz (MG). The results demonstrate that the adoption of family farm as an issue in public agenda was responsible for important changes in the performance of the Rural Workers Union (STR) of Espera Feliz with the adoption of collective devices used by farmers as a strategy for collective action. This organization adopted collective devices which began to be used by farmers as a strategy for collective action. It was possible to observe that these collective devices have undergone adjustments to their rules of reciprocity, constituting formalized institutions. Given the access to certain public policies, approaches with social mediators were created in order to optimize strategies developed by local organizations. This relationship, which becomes conflicting as there are divergences of collective orientations for development, can be classified as a relation of complementarity, normative domination or difficulties and tensions. In this set of relations, approximations between organizations and social mediators who work advising the farmers organizations are built up.