Agricultura familiar, associativismo e desenvolvimento local : o caso do arranjo produtivo local da caprinocultura no Sertão do Moxotó, em Pernambuco, Nordeste do Brasil.

Abstract

In the Brazilian semiarid region, goat farming plays a fundamental role in the reproduction of family farming and local development. Because of this, the formation of Local Productive Arrangements (APL's) around this activity is identified as a strategy capable of providing greater competitiveness to goat farming. Based on this perspective, this study analyzes the APL in Sitio Brabo and surroundings, located in the Municipality of Sertânia, Sertão do Moxotó in Pernambuco, highlighting the importance of public policies and associativism for the consolidation of this APL. It was found that the network established between research and extension institutions, centers specialized in goat farming, technical and social schools play a fundamental role in the consolidation of the APL in the region. This institutional network that encourages the activity also contributes to reducing the isolation of the producer and the rural exodus. The associativism stimulated by this APL stands out as the main tool for integrating producers around actions that guarantee the defense of common interests, being also identified as a locus for learning social technologies necessary to leverage the activity. the farmers of this micro-region, due to their ways of living and producing, define themselves as pluriactive family farmers. The importance of this work lies in the possibility of providing subsidies to public policies, in the sense of carrying out actions that favor the strengthening of goat farming as a strategy of fundamental importance for the reproduction of family agriculture, allowing, at the same time, the development of the micro-region based on in their productive endowments.