Políticas de crédito rural e gênero: uma análise do acesso ao PRONAF Mulher no Assentamento Normandia em Caruaru - PE

Abstract

The National Program for the Strengthening of Family Agriculture, PRONAF, represents the most relevant rural credit policy in Brazil. Through it, family farmers can invest in their activities and improve their agricultural production and socioeconomic conditions. However, demands from political-social movements, mainly led by women, brought about the need for specific gender policies that facilitate the inclusion of women farmers in production processes in a more autonomous way. Thus, in 2003, PRONAF Woman was created as a sub-program of PRONAF with a credit line aimed exclusively at female farmers, in order to facilitate and encourage their access to financing. Thus, this study proposed, from a qualitative approach, to study the access to PRONAF Woman by women farmers from the Normandia Settlement in Caruaru - Pernambuco. In order to fulfill the main objective, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 16 women who live in the settlement, as well as a survey of secondary data about the program and the acquisition process, with an analysis focused on each phase of credit taking. The results showed that, although PRONAF and PRONAF Woman represent important policies for family farming, their access is conditioned to secondary objectives that, in the specific case of Normandy, are not achieved in most cases. Local difficulties with the supply of water for plantations, irregular documentation and the settlement's own history make women farmers look for other sources of credit, albeit smaller, but more accessible.