Gênero no meio rural : a mulher na diversificação produtiva, no contexto da monocultura do tabaco, no município de Agudo/RS-Brasil.

Abstract

The Family farming has been an usual topic when the subject is about food production, especially in a context of a increasing growth of feeding crisis, when it comes to social inequality in the food access, as well as the abusive use of pesticides and agrochemicals. In this context, the rural territory appears as the proper place for production, and the families who live there have to think of new ways to overcome the consequences of methods applied by the capital in their living middle. The devaluation of the land can be proved by the lack of public policies to serve the countryside families. The social organization and mobilization were used to get over the faced difficulties. Organized, these field’s social mobilizations have been providing improvements in their rural properties, which starts with claim of rights and better living and working conditions, reaching the public policies operation that works according to the farmers’ demands, as in the case of “PAA – Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos”, Food Acquisition Program, in which this case study is based. In this context, the women participate and feel the consequences of the capitalism, reinforced by the sexism against women and patriarchate. It is in this conjecture that this research is developed, in which the subjects are the families from Agudo/RS, mainly the women farmers, in the process of tobacco’s diversification. After the analysis of the secondary data and documental material from the city of Agudo/RS, a collection of primary data was executed, by interviews with semi structured itinerary, applied to 8 (eight) women farmers, mostly along with their husbands. People from Popular leaderships and technicians who develop rural extension projects were also interviewed. The analyses were also made in loco, so the researcher spent a whole day in the rural property, following all the activities done by the women. At the end of the analysis, that are results of a participant research, we can conclude that when these women do their roles of mother and wife, they put a mark of resistance in the agriculture, through the diversified production of food without pesticides. This kind of production, also known as agroecology, goes in other way of the integrated tobacco production, in which the act of resistance may seem what denominates the conjecture of these women, that even when they participate of the social mobilization to improve their life conditions, they face inequalities. This research does not leave any doubt about the fundamental role of women in the subsistence production, that when overproduces, also generates earnings for their family, besides prioritizing an agriculture that prizes for the family’s health and for life.