Diversificação dos meios de vida como estratégia de reprodução da agricultura familiar

Abstract

Family farming is essential for food security, environmental preservation, and the valorization of traditional knowledge, but it faces structural vulnerabilities, such as inequalities in access to land and public policies, and cyclical vulnerabilities, such as market pressure, climate change, and competition with agribusiness, which deepen uncertainties regarding its ability to reproduce. Faced with these challenges, family farmers adopt adaptive strategies, such as diversifying their livelihoods. This thesis aims to analyze the effects of income diversification on the reproduction levels of Brazilian family farming, based on data from the 2017 Census. The theoretical foundation is based on Chayanov, Polanyi, and Ellis, highlighting the logic of peasant units, the substantive economy, the social embeddedness of the economy, and the various assets that make up the livelihoods of rural families and the strategies used for their reproduction. The proposed methodology used data from the 2017 Agricultural Census, made available by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), where omitted data from establishments in Brazilian microregions were treated. The General Diversity Index was created as a proxy for diversity, obtained through the analysis of the principal components of the Shannon, Pielou and Simpson indices. Meanwhile, exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the dimensions of family farming reproduction strategies. The results show that greater diversification is associated with better reproduction levels, while greater market insertion correlates with lower diversity. The regional analysis reveals distinct patterns of diversification, demonstrating that its effectiveness depends on local conditions. In the Northeast, diversification is associated with resilient agriculture, supported by agroecological practices, cooperation networks and public policies, indicating a strong capacity for social reproduction. In the Center-West, diversification emerges as a response to structural fragility; in the North, it articulates subsistence, social transfers and non-agricultural activities; In the Southeast, despite the presence of diversification, this has not reversed the low levels of reproduction; and in the South, there is a diversification linked to social organization, with greater insertion in markets. These patterns reinforce the idea that diversification is a functional practice rooted in the territories, which requires territorialized public policies that are sensitive to the plurality of rural ways of life.