Processos organizativos de produção e de comercialização de alimentos orgânicos na agricultura familiar : um estudo comparativo entre Brasil e Argentina.

Abstract

Family farming stands out as one of the main activities generating new working sources in Latin America, given the significant figures of the farming industry jobs in countries such as Brazil (77%) and Argentina (53%). It constitutes one of the economic activities with greater potential for increasing production, reducing poverty and guaranteeing food safety (CEPAL; FAO; IICA, 2014). In this context, one can highlight the increase, started in the 1990 decade, of organic food production by the family owned productive units which, according to the agricultural census of 2006, corresponded to 70% of the organics production in Brazil. In Argentina, according to the Movimiento Argentino para la Producción Orgánica (Argentinian Movement for Organic Production) – MAPO, it can be verified that the internal market for organic food more than doubled in the period between 2009 and 2011. The relevance achieved in the internal production and consumption of organic food in underdeveloped countries, such as Brazil and Argentina, where the (re)construction of the economic, social, cultural and environmental relationships in the organics producing family farming scenario, becomes a way of facing difficulties generally caused by capitalism and made dynamic by globalization. Given the importance, one may ask: in which level can the organizing processes typical to the production and selling of organic food in family farming contribute to the demands of both the farmers and the market? To clear the problem, the objective of analyzing these processes was established, in both the regions of the Conselho Regional de Desenvolvimento (Regional Development Council) – COREDE Central, in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil and in the Región de Desarrollo Urbano y Productivo (Productive and Urban Development Region) – REDUP, in the Buenos Aires province, Argentina, using a timeframe that ranges from the year of 1990 to the year of 2014. To achieve this goal, as for the theoretical-methodological approach, the theory of the two circuits of urban economy in underdeveloped countries by Milton Santos was adopted, because it brings the possibility of a broader analysis dimension about development, for the circuits, although having peculiar and opposed characteristics concurring among themselves, interact, connect and complement themselves and, because of that, maintain a dialectic relationship in which the subordination aspect does not harm the establishment of interdependence links. This theory, when linked to other authors’ studies, to bibliographical research, to secondary data sources and to field research conducted with family farmers, who produce organic food and get involved in the organizing processes as they manage their productive units and participate in different collective action organization forms – such as partnerships, producers pools, associations and/or coops – and still count with the help of technical assistance and rural extension institutions and universities, among others, has made possible to develop a comparative study that stands by the thesis that the organizing processes inherent to the production and selling of organic food in family farming has contributed to this category getting both market space and significant importance for internal consumers and food safety, both in Brazil and in Argentina, as solidarity networks are formed along the organic food productive chain. Keywords: organizing processes, family farming, production, selling, organic food productive chain.