La non-adhésion des agriculteurs du sertão brésilien à la conversion de leur Modèle agricole

Abstract

In the late 1990s, Brazil adopted a dual agricultural policy designed to promote both agribusiness and family farming. One of the main challenges in this area is the design of an agricultural model aimed at improving support to family farming - a form of agriculture largely overlooked by successive agricultural policies. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of this issue by examining the challenges involved in promoting the "modernisation" of this type of agriculture. Using a comparative ethnographic approach, the paper examines the implementation of tools that embody two key development projects in nine communities of the Sertão: reasoned agriculture and agroecology. The appropriation of these tools takes different forms ranging from rejection to remodelling, depending on whether the actors involved are technicians or farmers. However, in both cases, those concerned are invariably denied the possibility of taking ownership of the agricultural models upon which the tools provided to them are based.