Development Conditions for Family Farming: Lessons From Brazil

World Development Vol. 74, pp. 386–396, 2015 0305-750X/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.05.023

Development Conditions for Family Farming: Lessons From Brazil GABRIEL MEDINA a, CAMILA ALMEIDA a, EVANDRO NOVAES a, JAVIER GODAR b and BENNO POKORNY c,* a Federal University of Goia´s, Brazil b Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden c University of Freiburg, Germany Summary. — There is a renewed global interest in support of family farming becoming a more competitive sector, contributing to poverty alleviation, food security, and economic growth. This paper explores the development conditions faced by family farmers across Brazil. We not only reveal a potential for development, represented by the great number of family-based rural households, but also present several structural constraints faced by most family farmers, as well as great discrepancies among regions. We argue for encouraging the existing family farming potential by designing policies that consciously target specific regional challenges and avoid excluding segments not fitting into the modernization paradigm. Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Key words — rural development, agricultural policies, peasantry, family farming, socio-economic indicators

1. INTRODUCTION

shortcomings: it can create misleading expectations of the potentials and capacities of family farming, as well as to derive on the generic policy approaches that insufficiently consider local contexts and dynamics. There is a need to learn and adequately distinguish the specific conditions family farmers face as a basis for designing effective policies targeting concrete problems (Banerjee & Duflo, 2011). This need is particularly relevant for Brazil where there are 4.3 million family farms involving more than 11 million working people (FAO & INCRA, 2000). Food produced on family farms in Brazil account for 36% of the national food production (Guanziroli & Di Sabbato, 2014) and supplies market chains generating one third of the agricultural and food sector’s GDP (Guilhoto et al., 2007). Moreover, Brazil constitutes an insightful case because of the dense academic debate on the issue of the potential for development of family farming (Section 2), the availability of a comprehensive agricultural census data, the existence of legal definitions of family farming and ongoing government-led efforts to support family farming (Franc¸a, Del Grossi, & Marques, 2009). This study analyzes the spatial distribution of development conditions for family farmers in Brazil, discussing the challenges and potential for sound rural development. By using data from the national agricultural census, we characterize the development conditions that correlate with farm performance, and discuss the farmer’s potential for driving rural development under the existing conditions. Section 2 provides insights into the family farm sector in Brazil. Then, Section 3 reviews the factors shaping farmers’ performance from existing literature. Section 4 describes how the identified development factors have been methodologically assessed and analyzed. In the results, Sec-

As over 98% of farming holdings worldwide are family-based, their potential for driving agricultural growth is a recurrent issue, particularly in view of the steadily increasing demand for food, employment, and ecosystem services (FAO, 2014; Wiggins, Kirsten, & Llambı´, 2010). Some countries have intensified the support to family farmers, either responding to the demands of farmers or by including this issue in their strategic agendas (FAO, 2012). For developing countries as a whole, public spending in agriculture increased 6% annually in the 2000s (IFPRI, 2011). This support is particularly relevant for regions in early development stages, which tend to have fewer alternatives to agriculture (Diao, Hazell, & Thurlow, 2010). Most investments to support family farming focus on the promotion of modern and competitive business models, seeking integration into the larger economy and global markets to yield benefits in terms of both poverty alleviation and economic growth (De Schutter, 2011; Valde´s & Foster, 2010; World Bank, 2007). Programs for agricultural development are often based on a modernization paradigm applied in some Asian countries during the Green Revolution (Birner & Resnick, 2010). More recently, there have been initiatives following new rural development paradigms such as agro-pluriactivities, building on off-farm sources of income and access to market niches (Van der Ploeg et al., 2000). Nevertheless, apart from an increased recognition of the great number of family farmers and of their potential for generating societal benefits (IFAD, 2013), there is still limited knowledge about this highly diverse segment, whose definition is not even commonly agreed (Pokorny & De Jong, 2015). It is also unclear how the specific conditions under which family farmers act in the various regions, favor their development. Studies reveal key structural challenges for rural development such as the need to overcome market failures (Hazell, Poulton, Wiggins, & Dorward, 2010), to establish favorable institutional contexts (Pokorny et al., 2010), and to eliminate poverty traps (Sachs, 2005; Sen, 1999). This lack of robust consideration of the specific contexts in which family farmers live may lead to two critical

* We thank two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions to improve an earlier version of this manuscript. Gabriel Medina thanks the support of the Brazilian government through the CAPES foundation, Ministry of Education, via the “Program Science Without Borders” [Grant 2427-13-3]; Javier Godar gratefully acknowledges financial support received from the Swedish Research Council Formas [Grant 2012-1401]. Final revision accepted: May 27, 2015. 386

DEVELOPMENT CONDITIONS FOR FAMILY FARMING: LESSONS FROM BRAZIL

tion 5, we report on analytical findings thereby setting up a comprehensive picture of family farming in Brazil. In Section 6, the results are discussed in view of agricultural policies targeting family farming in Brazil. The conclusions are drawn in Section 7.

2. FAMILY FARMING IN BRAZIL In Brazil, family farming encompasses a wide range of actors, from the European-descendant farmers in the South of Brazil (Schneider & Fialho, 2000) to the quilombola communities formed by descendants of former escaped slaves brought from Africa (up to the 19th century) to work on sugar-cane plantations (Marin & Castro, 1998). It also includes the traditional caipiras working on large farms often based on informal agreements (Candido, 1975), assentados settlers that received small pieces of land from the National Institute for Colonization and Land Reform (INCRA) as a result of struggle for land reform (Fernandes, 2000), colonos migrating from other Brazilian regions to agricultural frontiers in the search of better living conditions (Godar, Tizado, Pokorny, & Johnson, 2012), and posseiros which are informal land occupiers that are commonly found in agricultural frontiers as well (Guerra, 2001). The concept also includes the manifold indigenous groups (Posey, 1985) as well as the traditional communities which include riparian villages in the Amazon (Diegues, 2000; Medina & Barbosa, 2015) among others. In spite of differences between all these groups, often they share common characteristics such as social marginalization in relation to large farmers, reliance on family workforce, poverty, isolation, informal land tenure, and high spatial mobility (Wanderley, 1999). Historically, rural Brazil is dominated by large farmers belonging to traditional economic elites (Martins, 1999). Until today, there is a steady process of land consolidation by large market-oriented farmers, which, in turn, often drive family farming expansion toward marginal areas (Godar et al., 2012). Many studies highlight the importance of reforms particularly regarding a more equal distribution of land tenure (Martins, 1999), but in Brazil, radical land reforms have never been implemented (Navarro, 2001; Ste´dile & Estevam, 2005). Instead, particularly from the 1960’s to the 1980’s, a “conservative modernization” of the countryside has been observed (Graziano da Silva, 1999). The outcome of this process is an agricultural sector with modern large farms tightly linked to global markets and, in the marginal areas, a poorly developed family farming sector, which recently has been targeted by social policies (Graziano da Silva, 1999; Navarro & Campos, 2013). Particularly inspired by family farming systems in Europe, scholars have argued for the great potential represented by family farmers to contribute to Brazilian rural development (Veiga, 2001) and the crucial role of the State in designing agricultural policies that support family farmers-led rural development (Abramovay, 1992). This philosophy has been very influential on the Ministry for Agrarian Development (MDA) that established in 2006 the National Policy of Family Farming (Law number 11.326) to support family farmers with credits, technical assistance, and the commercialization of their production. This law also defines family farmers according to the following four criteria: (1) they own no more than four fiscal modules, whose area varies according to the municipality and is defined by Law 6746/1979, (2) their workforce consists mainly of family members; (3) their income derives

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predominantly from the farm and (4) the farm is managed by the family. With these criteria, the government aggregated all the categories of small rural households under the single concept of family farms as a mean for promoting a modern and competitive sector, well integrated into national and global markets (Abramovay, 1992; Lamarche, 1993). In this sense, a family farm can be defined as a politically forged concept to promote political mobilization and also to target an ideal type of farming system (Neves, 2007). However, recent studies highlight that the agricultural policies need to consider, more consciously, the high heterogeneity among family farmers, with contrasting performances, capacities, and productive vocation (Guanziroli & Di Sabbato, 2014; Sober, 2014). According to Alves and Rocha (2010) less than 10% of the farmers in Brazil play a significant role in agricultural production, while the vast majority has a very limited income from agricultural production (Alves & Rocha, 2010). Over the last decade only 452,750 wealthy family farms, out of 4.3 million in total, have managed to increase participation in total production, while the poorer segments have only grown in absolute numbers, without a concomitant increase in production (Guanziroli, Buainain, & Sabbato, 2013). Based on this, scholars agree that only a limited proportion of family farmers would be able to become competitive food producers (Buainain & Garcia, 2013), fitting into the promoted modern and market-oriented production schemes. There is, however, no clear alternative for the vast majority of families that do not fit into the modern paradigm but tend to remain in the countryside. 3. CRITICAL FEATURES OF FAMILY FARMING Achieving sustainable rural development requires adequate conditions for family farmers. These conditions are intrinsically heterogeneous in space, especially so in Brazil with its continental-size scale, socio-environmental diversity and differential regional development paths (Branda˜o, 2007). This section discusses key factors that determine the conditions contributing to success of family farming. For the sake of clarity we distinguish three general factors: the assets available to farmers, context conditions, and farmers’ strategies to respond to emerging opportunities. (a) Assets In classic economic thinking, it is land, labor, and capital that essentially define the fate of family farming (Costa, 1995). Availability of these assets is associated with autonomy, resilience, and freedom (Sen, 1999). With respect to land, particularly two aspects are considered fundamental: the tenure regime and the size of the farmed property. Since the historical studies on the importance of enclosures in England (Mazoyer & Roudar, 2010), land tenure, meaning clearly defined formal ownership of land, is generally understood as a fundamental precondition for any type of investment (Hardin, 1968). More recently, heterodox economists also showed that, under certain conditions, the effective management of commonly owned land is possible (Ostrom, 1990). In Brazil, land struggles and land reform demands are at the spotlight of national debates, both because of the precarious situation of farmers under informal tenure regimes and of the extreme unequal land distribution (Fernandes, 2000). Studies also suggest the importance of farm size for achieving sufficient economies of scale to facilitate investments in technology (Mazoyer & Roudart, 2010). Brazil

388

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

faced an intense political discussion about the ideal size of farms in the 1960’s concluding that neither very small (minifu´ndio) nor very large (latifu´ndio) areas were favorable for national development (Estatuto da Terra, Law N° 4.504, November 30, 1964). In 1979, the concept of fiscal modules (mo´dulo fiscal) was introduced (Law 6.746, December 10, 1979) representing the minimum size of land financially worth farming by a standard family unit. The size of the fiscal modules varies geographically from five to 110 ha depending on the specific conditions in which the farm is situated, which were evaluated at a municipal scale. The use of family labor is described as a structural characteristic of family farming (Chayanov, 1974). Farmer’s willingness to invest family labor into production is basically determined by the basic consumption needs that guarantee the social reproduction of the family (Chayanov, 1974; Costa, 1995). The use of family workforce reduces investments and risk because no salaries are paid. Family labor allows also greater flexibility as labor can be allocated as needed. According to the so called new rural development paradigm, pluri-active families with off-farm income are commonly assumed to be better-off (Hoang, Pham, & Ulubasoglu, 2014; Schneider, 2013; Van der Ploeg et al., 2000). However, in Brazil, the vast majority of family farms have no access to off-farm jobs (Medina & Novaes, 2014). As the family is in charge of all management decisions, productive activities and often even commercialization, farmer’s access to education is crucial for success (Freire, 1995; Ogundari, 2014). Family farming usually suffers from a notorious lack of capital for productive investments (Lønborg & Rasmussen, 2014). Considering an often very limited access to private credit, investments strongly depend on farm income, governmental programs, and off-farm income (World Bank, 2007). (b) Context The availability of assets can provide autonomy, resilience, and flexibility to farmers. However, family farmers face growing competition from corporate farmers enjoying economies of scale (Wilkinson, 2002). Growing competition would often lead family farmers to longer working hours in order to maintain their income levels (Costa, 1995), which could in the long term imply overexploitation of the family labor (Kautsky, 1998). Moreover, competition also hinders farmers’ capacity to re-invest in their farm, which may lead to reduced production and environmental degradation (Mazoyer & Roudart, 2010). In the ultimate case, according to the classical Marxist theory, family farmers could end up transformed either in small rural capitalists relying on hired labor or in employees after having lost their assets (mainly land) (Tepicht, 1966). This might explain the great rural exodus in the last decades in Brazil, where rural population decreased from 38 million inhabitants in 1960 to 29 million in 2010 (IBGE, 2010). Despite these challenges, family farming still accounts for nearly 85% of the total number of farms in Brazil (Franc¸a et al., 2009). Among the reasons explaining this resilience, besides their capacity to bear overexploitation and hard living conditions, is the improvement of infrastructure and access to agricultural policies that might have favored their development substantially (Franc¸a et al., 2009). Agricultural policies can support the development and consolidation of family farming, for example by positively affecting food prices, allowing access to markets and land tenure, and supporting technological innovation (Abramovay, 1992; Birner & Resnick, 2010). Although Brazil typically provides only modest direct support to their farmers (around 5% of

gross farm receipts) in comparison with other large producer countries in the European Union (23%) and USA (9%) (Brooks, 2014), the budget for supporting family farmers has steadily been growing over the years, reaching USD 10.8 billion in the agricultural year of 2013–14. The agricultural bill Plano Safra 2013–14 supports the maintenance of technical assistance, credits, and commercialization of agricultural products, with most of the effort channeled through the credit program Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar (Pronaf) – USD 9.4 billion (MDA, 2013). Also access to infrastructure is generally seen as a crucial pre-condition for economic development (Pokorny et al., 2010). Improved infrastructure positively influences agricultural productivity, options for networking, processing and commercialization, rural non-farm employment, and rural– urban migration (Fan & Zhang, 2004). Access to roads and electricity are key indicator for assessing the availability of public services, life quality, and economic opportunities. (c) Strategies Another important factor to capture the capacity of family farmers to effectively respond to emerging opportunities and challenges is the specific productive and organizational strategy that they employ. These include aspects such as the choice of technologies, market integration, and their social organization. The willingness and capacity of farmers to adopt technologies is often perceived as fundamental for farmers to remain competitive (Lipton, 2010). This is particularly true in globalized food markets, where the agricultural sector of developing countries has to compete with those of industrialized countries typically showing high productivities sustained by sophisticated technologies and significant subsidies (Mazoyer & Roudart, 2010). While there is general agreement on the importance of technological development, the question of which technologies and level of mechanization are most suitable for family farmers is still disputed (see Caporal & Costabeber, 2004; Graziano da Silva, Kageyama, Roma˜o, Neto, & Pinto, 1983). In the classic understanding of agricultural development, key technological innovations include soil preparation, fertilization, irrigation, and the use of machinery while alternative productive approaches highlight the importance of optimizing locally developed practices instead of adopting external production schemes (Altieri, 1995). Another feature that effectively differentiates the family farm sector is the way families integrate into markets. Farmers traditionally tend to produce food mostly for their own consumption and thus their livelihoods rely less on markets (Ellis, 1988). Also, the market engagement of family farmers is often characterized by personalized relationships with local traders and middlemen who generally benefit from a monopsonic position. In contrast, other scholars highlight the importance of greater integration of family farmers into formal markets and a more intense specialization of production for making family farms more competitive (Briones, 2015; FAO, 2013). However, it is important to consider the challenges imposed by all actors along the supply chain (Wilkinson, 2002). Contrary proposals stress the need for family farmers to avoid highly competitive commodity markets by approaching alternative niches such as organic food, which in certain contexts offers attractive prices and the possibility for processing and adding value to the products, particularly if commercialized locally (Ayuya et al., 2015; Van der Ploeg et al., 2000). There is, however, serious skepticism on the potential of such market niches to absorb family farming production at scale, and on

DEVELOPMENT CONDITIONS FOR FAMILY FARMING: LESSONS FROM BRAZIL

the capacity of family farmers to fulfill demanding requirements on products and logistics that may be even higher than in the staple markets (Wiggins, 2006). Thus, for the vast majority of farmers, there might be little alternative but to compete in classic staple markets. Another essential aspect of family farming success is socio-economic integration, which is often associated with farmers’ capacity for social organization. Classical literature reveals that the relationship of peasants with the broad society is often challenging. In terms of social integration, Redfield (1956) argues that peasantry societies are in the middle between indigenous and urban modern societies. Linkages among these cultures often rely on middle-man and patrons often based on paternalistic relationships (Medina, Pokorny, & Campbell, 2009a, 2009b). Aggregation of farmer families fosters security and social organization that is traditionally grounded on personal relationships (Mendras, 1978; Shanin, 1971; Wolf, 1970). It also facilitates logistics, which positively influences the access and quality to public services and strengthens the groups’ position in markets (FAO, 2013). Social and market integration can further be facilitated by farmers’ representative organizations such as unions for dialog and political representation, and cooperatives for channeling members’ interests in marketing (FAO, 2013). However, besides its potential, social organization may also imply high transaction costs for farmers, particularly in cooperatives with commercial purposes. 4. METHODOLOGY For the key factors determining the performance of family farms, we explored available statistical information from the Brazilian Agricultural Census of 2006 conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). This census is based on interviews carried out virtually in the totality of rural households in Brazil and coherently considers family farms in accordance to national law defining (Law n° 11.326, July 24, 2006). We used data for households already aggregated by IBGE according the abovementioned law, except for some indicators not available by IBGE for which we relied on data prepared according to the definition of family farming adopted by FAO and INCRA, as indicated in Table 1 (FAO & INCRA, 2000). From the parameters made available by IBGE, we selected those that best express the above outlined key factors, encompassing a set of 15 indicators (Table 1). The use of the IBGE dataset allowed for a spatially explicit description of the situation of family farming for all municipalities of Brazil. For the general description we present the regional averages for each indicator, considering the five officially delimited Brazilian regions (North, North East, Centre West, South East and South). In Figure 1, the data are presented for each factor. The proportion of the holdings with a positive outcome for each of those factors in relation to the total number of holdings was calculated for every municipality. The municipalities received a score from 1 to 5 according to their correspondence quintile (e.g., proportions of 0– 20% are associated to one point, between 20% and less than 40% got two points, etc.). 5. RESULTS (a) Assets The assets analysis reveals a large number of holdings and people involved in family farming. Main challenges include

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access to land and qualification of family labor, with great discrepancies among regions and also at the municipal level (see Figure 1). According to the agricultural census, from the 329 million ha of privately owned land, 80.25 million ha are occupied by 4.37 million family farms, representing 84.40% of the rural households in Brazil. This reciprocally means that less than one million larger farmers own 75.70% of the land. In most municipalities, family farms represent the majority of farmers, and in almost 30% of the municipalities, particularly in the South, they also own most of the land (Table 2). In absolute terms, more than half of the family holdings are in the North East (50.10%), with 9.40% in the North, 5.00% in Centre West, 16.00% in the South East and 19.50% in the South. There is a weak negative correlation between income and the density of family farm holdings, both in proportion of holdings (r = 0.09) and area (r = 0.26) (Table 2). This suggests that family farmers tend to be better off when they are not the majority in relation to large farmers, indicating the possibility of dependency from labor offered by capitalized farmers that complement family farm’s income. However, this tendency of lower performance could also be explained by the especially negative conditions (soil quality, infrastructure, services) endured by family farmers in marginal areas not attractive to larger non-family farmers. The South is the only region with a positive correlation between income and the density of family farm holdings (r = 0.28). Property ownership correlates positively with income (r = 0.20). Around 75% of all family farmers have a legal land title, while the rest suffer from partly unclear tenure regimes, working as tenants, informally occupying land, not being in possession of a definitive title. In addition, there is a strong demand for land-less families to be settled in rural settlements, although these cases were not considered in the farming statistics used here. Most informal occupiers are located in the North East. On the other hand, farmers without definitive land title are mainly found in the Centre West. Also the relative size of the farms significantly and positively correlates with income (r = 0.35). The limited availability of land to most of the family farmers is shown by the fact that more than 80% of the family farms dispose of less than one fiscal module (Table 2 and Figure 1.1). In absolute terms, an average family farm in Brazil covers an area of 18.37 ha, with the North East having the smallest area on average of 12.95 ha in comparison with 40.25 ha in the North, 43.09 ha in the Centre West, 18.25 ha in South East and 15.36 ha in the South. While land for the vast majority of the families is rather limited, the situation regarding workforce is more positive. On average 2.53 people work on a family farm, which sum up to a total of more than 11 million working people, representing around 12% of the number of the economically active population in Brazil. The vast majority works exclusively on the farm with only 1.76% of all working people having off-farm jobs. This figure should not be mixed with the information released by IBGE (2006) revealing that around 24% of the family farms in Brazil obtain off-farm income, as most of it comes from social welfare programs and pensions paid by the government and not from off-farm jobs. The correlation with income is weakly negative with the number of people working in the holding and there is no correlation with the labor invested in off-farm jobs, which suggests the poor quality of the working opportunities available for both the on farm and off-farm workers (Table 2). Although there is a lot of labor available on most of the farms, the level of qualification is low. More than a quarter of the farm heads are illiterate and only 42.92% have started

390

WORLD DEVELOPMENT Table 1. Parameters for assessing the conditions for family farming

Factors

Indicators

Assets Land Density (Law 11.326/MDA) Land tenure regime (FAO/INCRA) Size of the farms (Law 11.326/MDA) Labor Characteristics of the family labor – Number of people in rural households (Law 11.326/MDA)  Proportion of people in agricultural activities in the households (Law 11.326/MDA)  Proportion of people with off-farm sources of income (FAO/INCRA) Educational level of the head of the farm (Law 11.326/MDA) Capital Income of family farmers per household (Law 11.326/MDA)  Extreme poverty – holdings with an income smaller than USD 30 per person per month)  Low income – holdings with income below one minimum wage and above the extreme poverty line  Between one and two minimum wages per household  Between two and three minimum wages per household  Above three minimum wages per household Context Access to agricultural policies Credit (Law 11.326/MDA) Technical assistance (Law 11.326/MDA) Access to infrastructure Electrical energy - In the household from all sources (FAO/INCRA) Strategies Adoption of technologies Production techniques  Use of soil preparation (FAO/INCRA)  Use of soil fertilization (Law 11.326/MDA)  Use of Irrigation (FAO/INCRA)  Ownership of machinery – including tractors, soil cultivators, or sowing machines (FAO/INCRA) Market integration Market integration (FAO/INCRA) Level of specialization (FAO/INCRA) Access to alternative markets (organic) (FAO/INCRA) Socio-economic integration Cooperatives (Law 11.326/MDA) Associations (Law 11.326/MDA) Source: The indicators used were downloaded from the IBGE/SIDRA web site http://www.sidra.ibge.gov.br/bda/pesquisas/ca/defaultFAO.asp?z=p&o= 2&i=P. Each indicator is followed by the indication of the methodology used for its calculation (either Law 11.326/MDA or FAO/INCRA).

attending primary school (Table 2 and Figure 1.2). The most concerning situation occurs in the North East where more than 42% of the heads of the family farms are illiterate. This is a crucial indicator since the education level of the head of the household positively correlates with most of the variables analyzed, including income (r = 0.42). Regarding the availability of capital, being the third classic factor of production, our analysis reveals another concerning situation. The total income of nearly two thirds of the family farms (62.31%) is below national minimum wage, with 6.13% of the families falling under the line of extreme poverty (Table 2 and Figure 1.3). In comparison, the income of the farmers in the North East is low, while the financial situation of farmers in the South is often much better.

to the support of family farmers. Only 12.77% of the farmers benefited from Pronaf, most of them located in the South (Table 3 and Figure 1.4). The results with respect to technical assistance are even worse. On average only 6.22% of households occasionally receive any form of technical assistance, either from national, federal, or municipal government programs. Less than 3% of the households can count on regular assistance. More positive, is the situation regarding infrastructure. More than 68% of all households have access to electricity and in the South the result is even better, with more than 80% of access. In the North and North East more than 40% and 60% of the rural families, respectively, still lack this asset (Table 3 and Figure 1.5). Nevertheless, the public investments over the last decade obviously have resulted in significant infrastructural improvement in rural Brazil.

(b) Context (c) Strategies The results also reveal structural challenges represented by the institutional framework outside the farmers’ gate. Access to agricultural policies and electricity correlate positively with income but are unevenly distributed across the country (Table 3). We analyzed the access to agricultural policies in particular to Pronaf, Brazils’ credit program, explicitly dedicated

The uses of technologies, market integration and social organization have a clear positive correlation with income. However, farmers respond very differently to the different conditions found in Brazil. Most farmers still do not have the possibility to use basic agricultural technologies for preparation

DEVELOPMENT CONDITIONS FOR FAMILY FARMING: LESSONS FROM BRAZIL

Figure 1. Spatial description of the crucial development conditions per municipality in Brazil.

391

392

Table 2. Assets – the availability of land, labor, and capital of small farms in Brazil Correlation with income Land

Density of family farmers

Land tenure

Labor

Characteristics of the family labor

Educational level of the head of the farm

Capital

Number of households in the different income ranges

Number of working people in rural households which are members of the family % working with agriculture in household % with off-farm wage Illiterate Literate Primary school initiated Primary school concluded Secondary school Agricultural college Extreme poverty Low income Between one and two minimum wages Between two and three minimum wages Above three minimum wages

North

North East

Centre West

South East

South

0.26

93.99

98.22

98.1

82

88.72

98.23

0.09

29.37

28.95

39.06

3.47

14.92

46.62

0.2

74.68

77.38

67.39

78.01

84.53

83.11

0.29 0.28 0.02 0.05 0.24 0.48 0.35

4.45 8.65 2.87 3.91 83.07 10.99 5.94

0.99 6.97 1.66 5.88 79.98 14.32 5.70

5.15 12.28 3.84 3.56 92.31 5.04 2.65

2.44 3.58 0.33 14.29 71.56 16.47 11.97

3.37 4.7 2.51 2.33 75.82 14.54 9.65

5.74 4.75 1.96 2.39 71.53 19.32 9.15

–

11,038,471

1,299,440

5,593,069

496,660

1,554,702

2,094,600

0.14

98.24

98.45

98.36

98.1

98.52

97.64

0 0.58 0.18 0.42 0.45

1.76 26.74 5.57 42.92 7.78

1.55 20.06 10.54 47.45 7.32

1.64 42.55 5.50 29.98 4.93

1.9 10.42 7.05 50.55 11.72

1.48 12.67 5.59 49.45 11.23

2.36 5.05 2.96 66.68 11.49

0.42 0.36

4.81 1.02

3.31 0.88

3.15 0.60

8.48 1.74

7.60 1.62

6.54 1.51

– – –

6.13 56.18 22.58

5.16 59.95 16.95

10.16 65.35 15.06

1.87 66.42 23.51

4.30 65.27 20.82

0.87 17.98 44.94

–

7.53

8.35

4.84

4.10

5.01

17.73

–

7.58

9.58

4.58

4.10

4.60

18.48

WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Size of the areas (mo´dulos)

Number – percentage of municipalities with majority (>50%) of family farmers holdings Area – percentage of municipalities with majority (>50%) of area hold by family farmers Owner-occupier with title Tenant Informal occupier Partner Without definitive title 0–1 1–2 2–4

Brazil

DEVELOPMENT CONDITIONS FOR FAMILY FARMING: LESSONS FROM BRAZIL

393

Table 3. Context factors – access to agricultural policies and infrastructure Correlation with income

Brazil

North

North East

Centre West

South East

South

Access to agricultural policies

Pronaf Occasional technical assistance Regular technical assistance

0.21 0.27 0.28

12.77 6.22 2.96

5.08 7.29 3.48

8.81 3.17 1.72

8.08 7.95 3.58

9.88 8.59 3.91

30.25 11.14 4.93

Access to infrastructure

Access to electricity

0.31

68.26

41.97

62.56

71.44

81.34

84.23

Table 4. Farmers’ strategies – adoption of technology, market integration, and socioeconomic integration Correlation with Brazil North North East Centre West South East South income Adoption of technology

Market integration

Soil preparation

0.31

42.10

13.54

38.00

30.21

38.65

72.42

Soil fertilization Use manure Use nitrogen-based fertilizer Irrigation Owns machinery

0.56 0.29 0.59 0.14 0.47

33.81 11.73 24.31 5.98 17.43

10.03 2.47 6.06 2.35 2.82

18.84 8.66 8.96 5.26 10.37

24.15 4.51 15.24 4.58 12.73

49.97 14.85 38.79 12.12 18.98

73.04 23.38 63.10 4.90 42.64

0.45

24.46

24.63

18.35

31.15

35.13

29.62

Integrated Low integration High diversification

0.13 0.37 0.15

23.56 41.92 3.90

27.50 34.93 2.98

20.98 51.63 4.49

23.02 27.76 1.13

18.23 33.02 2.46

32.58 31.50 4.72

Diversified Specialized High specialization Non-organic

0.08 0.19 0.06 0.09

30.21 35.57 20.27 98.29

21.50 37.11 25.47 98.74

34.02 33.40 19.04 98.33

15.86 40.29 24.63 98.64

21.17 35.92 26.83 97.99

35.65 38.78 14.55 98.10

Using agrochemicals Certified organic farmer

0.46 0.28

27.49 0.08

12.38 0.07

19.12 0.04

15.15 0.06

21.48 0.12

64.46 0.18

Associated Cooperated

0.13 0.5

41.07 5.45

36.72 1.95

38.90 1.08

31.13 6.75

34.88 9.74

56.34 14.49

Integration level High integration

Diversification level

Access to market niches

Socio-economic integration

and fertilization of their soils (Table 4). Far less than half of the households prepare their soil employing standard practices such as plowing, shallow cultivation, or non-til agriculture. Also soil fertilization is not standard, as only a third of the family farmers use this kind of technology. Again, the best performance is found in the South and the worst in the North (Figure 1.6). Irrigation practices are also rare throughout Brazil. Except in the South East, irrigation is nearly absent, even in the dry regions of the North East. Accordingly, the level of mechanization is generally low. Only 17.43% of the family farmers own machines such as tractors, soil cultivators or sowing machines. In the North, the use of such machines is limited to less than 3% of the farmers. Less than 25% of the farmers reported having a high integration into markets (Table 4 and Figure 1.7). More than half of the families opt, at least partially, for a certain specialization indicating an influence of markets. Nearly nonexistent however, was a response to niche markets such as organic markets, generally assumed to be a promising alternative for family farming. Besides the fact that relatively few family farmers use agrochemicals (27.49%), only a small proportion do organic agriculture (1.63%) and an even smaller quantity are certified as organic farmers (0.08%) (Table 4). In terms of social organization, more than 40% of the family farmers are participating in associations. In contrast, only around 5% of the family farmers actively take part in some

kind of cooperative (Figure 1.8). In the South, the values for both indicators, participation in associations as well as in cooperatives, are significantly higher than in the North and the North East. 6. DISCUSSION This study analyzed the development conditions faced by family farmers in Brazil as a mean for supporting the ongoing international academic debate on the potential of family farming to drive rural development and the agricultural growth needed to satisfy the globally increasing demand for food and other goods and services from agriculture (Wiggins et al., 2010). The analysis clearly reveals that only some municipalities and regions hold favorable conditions for modern family farming; while for most of the country, poor availability of assets as well as unfavorable context conditions hinder the development of family farmers. This implies in the need to discuss how to realize the potential through modern family farming practices but also the need to explore alternatives for farmers not fitting into the modernization paradigm. Alarming figures, such as 62.31% of the family farmers having a total income of less than one minimum wage and no more than 12.77% of households benefiting from agricultural policies, suggest that the majority of people presently working on family farms need development alternatives.

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(a) The potential of modern family farming The results indicate a great potential for rural development based on family farming in some municipalities primarily located in the Southern part of Brazil. In these cases the high number of holdings and people involved in the sector matches many other conditions that can favor the development of modern and competitive family farms. The aggregated map of development conditions (Figure 1.9) reveals that this is basically the case for the South region, where a high proportion of the municipalities present the necessary development conditions set together, and specific municipalities mostly across the South East and Centre West regions. Thus, the continued investment in the modernization of family farming may increase the number of farmers with better performance (Birner & Resnick, 2010; De Schutter, 2011; Valde´s & Foster, 2010; World Bank, 2007), if the barriers hindering their development are removed. However, the way family farming is promoted by current policies strongly limits the group of potential beneficiaries (Graziano da Silva et al., 1983; Medina et al., 2009a, 2009b; Wanderley, 2014). Thus, defining a single ideal model of family farming, based either in the unique situation existent in the South of Brazil or in the models of developed countries (Abramovay, 1992) can be detrimental for farmers in other regions, runs the risk of excluding everyone that does not fit in this standard and may not thrive and leave agriculture (as suggested by Alves & Rocha, 2010; Navarro & Campos, 2013). Doubtlessly, as impressively shown by the strong concentration of credits (Figure 1.4), it has been primarily the farmers in the South that benefited from the current standardized policy framework because they are considered to best fit in the model. While the governmental development proposal for farmers in the South with potential for modernization seems clear, it is not the case for the majority of farmers which cannot or do not want to follow this pathway (Guanziroli & Di Sabbato, 2014). Studies in the North, for example, reveal the challenges faced by traditional communities for having their agricultural practices acknowledged and supported by the government, left with the option of either leaving the countryside or to remain but living in growing poverty (Medina & Barbosa, 2015). Recent studies suggest that North and North East are the regions with the greatest demand for alternative policies supporting family farming (Homma, Menezes, & Moraes, 2014; Silva & Costa, 2014). Proposals include greater State support to local farming systems (such as traditional use of timber, community-based fishing agreements and management of native ac¸aı´ palm trees) rather than the promotion of foreign activities and management practices such as formal community forest management plans or payments for environmental services (Medina & Barbosa, 2015). (b) Alternatives for farmers not fitting into the modernization paradigm Farmers in most of Brazil face structural constraints both in terms of limited assets (e.g., relatively small land sizes) or unfavorable institutional context (such as poor access to agricultural policies), leading to poor development in terms of technology, market integration and social organization. Obviously, under such conditions, for the vast majority of family farmers, in particular those located in rural regions in early development stages, there is no favorable perspective through the classic modernization pathway (Birner & Resnick, 2010). And it is exactly in these areas where families tend to have few alternatives to agriculture (Diao et al., 2010).

The results also suggest that supporters of the new rural development paradigm (Schneider, 2013; Van der Ploeg et al., 2000) ignores the fact that most of the necessary pre-conditions currently do not exist in most of Brazil. As an example, off-farm jobs (Hoang et al., 2014) are not available for the vast majority of households and there is no correlation with income, suggesting poorly paid jobs. Market niches (Ayuya et al., 2015) either are not available or are not accessible, with just 0.08% of the family farmers accessing organic markets, for example. As modernization is not feasible and off-farm alternatives are limited for most farmers, a classical alternative would include a radical democratization of the assets, for example through land tenure reform (Fernandes, 2000; Martins, 1999) connected with global access to education (Ogundari, 2014) as a structural and strategic rural development measure. Nonetheless, many experts are skeptical about the practicability of structural changes in the current political situation (Navarro, 2001; Ste´dile & Estevam, 2005). Alternatively, the literature on peasantry, although largely neglected in the more recent debates, has been particularly insightful in revealing characteristics and potentials of the different rural segments that can be supported (Wanderley, 1999). These segments would include not only the farmers in the South of Brazil, but also the quilombolas (Marin & Castro, 1998), the assentados (Fernandes, 2000), the colonos (Godar et al., 2012), the posseiros (Guerra, 2001), the parceiros (Candido, 1975), the indigenous groups (Posey, 1985), and the traditional communities (Diegues, 2000). However, a development approach building on the potential of these different segments is still missing. Contemporary studies on rural development suggest targeting the structural constraints hindering local development as a means to free people from poverty traps (Mendola & Simtowe, 2015; Sachs, 2005; Sen, 1999). This includes the need for identifying and addressing the main challenges faced by farmers in a pragmatic manner in order to stimulate their development potential (Banerjee & Duflo, 2011). 7. CONCLUSION Most family farmers in Brazil face structural constraints both in terms of limited assets or unfavorable institutional context that hinders their development through the classic modernization pathway. This study has revealed that 83.07% of the family farms have insufficient land to be competitive, only 42.92% of household heads started attending primary school, and 62.31% of the households have a total income of less than one minimum wage. Farmers also face an unfavorable institutional context with only 12.77% benefiting from agricultural policies and 68.26% having access to electricity. As a consequence, only 33.81% adopt basic technologies such as soil fertilization, no more than 24.46% are highly integrated into markets and just 5.45% belong to cooperatives. Such results suggest an abysm between the present situation and the one required for family farming to realize its potential role in poverty alleviation, food security and economic growth. We suggest that the current enthusiasm on the potential of family farmers for rural development has to be based on a realistic assessment of the development conditions they face. A realistic assessment can avoid creating false expectations, promoting standardized concepts, and allow an assertive intervention. An alternative rural development approach is needed and it has to evolve from the one-size-fits-all current approach to encourage local potentials. It has to take into account not only

DEVELOPMENT CONDITIONS FOR FAMILY FARMING: LESSONS FROM BRAZIL

those family farmers with potential to become highly competitive in commodity markets, but also those not fitting into the modernization paradigm. Marginal farmers in marginal areas, which comprise the majority of family farmers in Brazil, would greatly benefit from further research on alternative, but realistic, development pathways. These farmers already carry out different traditional or locally based activities which have to be acknowledged and supported. Only policies that release the constraints they endure and take into account their specific assets, qualifications, capabilities, and interests can guarantee stimulation of the family farmers’ potential. State support to local farming systems has a greater chance of success than the promotion of foreign

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practices of the modernization paradigm. It is also more promising than the appealing but very restrictive alternatives foreseen by the so called new rural development paradigm such as off-farm jobs or niche markets for organic products. Considering the limits of the modernization as well as the new rural development paradigms, it is time for alternative rural development approaches encouraging existing local potentials and ongoing endogenous initiatives. We believe that steps toward supporting alternative development pathways have not yet been done due to the lack of information on the limits of the current paradigms. We hope to have contributed to fulfill this scientific gap with this paper.

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