Tag Archives: Agriculture

Evolution of Rural Development Paradigm in Brazil

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In a recent research seminar prof. Sergio Schneider (schneide@ufrgs.br), coordinator of the  Rural Development Post Graduate Program from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), presented a telling analysis of major changes in Rural Developments Policies in Brazil in the last twenty years. He explained that the recent evolution in rural development policies, as effectuated by president Lula, has to be understood within the context the evident political struggles on land. Brazil is a large country with traditionally a sharp contrast between the interests of agro-industrial conglomerates and social rural movements of landless people and peasants (e.g. MST).

This is reflected in a dualist agrarian structure between capitalist and entrepreneurial family farming and peasant familiy farming and rural poor (landless) who are struggling for survival and autonomy. In 1995 1 % of the owners with more then 1000 ha owned 45% of all land, while 90% of the owners with less then 100 ha owned only 20%. An unexpected and striking consequence of rural poverty is, that food security in rural areas is significantly lower then in urban areas. In rural areas 26% of the housholds suffers severe food insecurity versus 17% in urban areas. Because of this dualist agrarian structure Brazil is probably the only country in the world with two Ministries of Agriculture, serving different needs.

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Excursions give real-world examples

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Excursion 02-03-2009, Course Globalisation and Sustainability of Food Production and ConsumptionBy Zachary Daly – exchange student at Wageningen University from Guelp University, Canada.

It’s always nice to be able to actually go out and see real-world examples of what you are studying and reading about in class. During the course Globalisation and Sustainability of Food Production and Consumption we had the opportunity to visit some farms. As such it was very interesting to see and talk to two organic farmers that are involved in alternative food provisioning networks, but work in a quite different way. The first farmer, Gerrit Marsman, has a mixed farm called De Eerste with a cheese factory and home delivery service, employing about 10 persons. He was ideologically very dedicated to what he was doing, talking about the madness of the global trade in feed and food, the health problems that the use of chemicals in agriculture cause, and the problem of a short-term and money-oriented economy leading to financial crisis. The second farmer, Rene de Lange, appeared to be less ideological motivated and more pragmatic. His family owns has a brand new farm with milking sheep in national park De Weerribben, a protected landscape of high cultural and natural value. A high milk production per sheep is important to him and his wife, as well as a hygiene-proof processing unit to make cheese, yoghurt, and ‘feta’. They market their products under the label of Weerribben Schapenzuivel (sheep dairy), through a wholesaler, to organic food shops all over The Netherlands, and even for export.

Rural Development in Brazil: interfaces between public policy and social actors

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From the 10th till the 28th of February Prof. Sergio Schneider of the Federal University of Rio Grande de Sul (UFRGS) in Brazil is visiting Wageningen under the agreement CAPES-Wageningen University. Sergio is Professor of Rural Sociology and Coordinator of the Post-Graduate Programme in Rural Development (PGDR). In his contribution to the Rural Sociology Weblog he briefly introduces his research domain. He will also present this at a research seminar of the Rural Sociology Group on Thursday 19 February at 16.00 hrs in room C70 of the Leeuwenborch building.

Sergio SchneiderBy Sergio Schneider – Since the 1990’s discussions on rural development in Brazil are no longer associated with policies to combat poverty. From these times onwards discussions on rural development have been related to themes like environmental sustainability, land reform, policies to support small family farming and more recently, the issue of food security. The discussion on rural development in Brazil has gained strong momentum … Continue reading →

Collective approach to farmer marketing – recommendations

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Dutch Initiative Van Eigen ErfRecently our rural sociology group finished an European research project on collective farmers marketing initiatives. The COFAMI project identified a broad set of enabling and limiting factors to explain the emergence of and dynamics within farmers’ driven collective action and developed a methodology to assess their impacts on different types of territorial capital assets. Empirial material from Italy, Germany, Latvia, Austria, Czech Republic, Switzerland and The Netherlands covers collective farmers initiatives in fields as high quality food production, provision of new rural goods and services and region branding. A summary of recommendations, reports and other project material can be downloaded from www.cofami.org.