As trajetórias de Serra do Mel e do Projeto Baixo-Açu/RN: experiências de desenvolvimento com agricultura familiar

Abstract

This dissertation is a study on family farming and aims to analyze the differentiation of rural development in the municipality of Serra do Mel and the Baixo-Açu Project, in Rio Grande do Norte. It is inserted in the analysis of production and reproduction strategies by rural societies and seeks to be added, therefore, as a contribution to studies on rural development. However, it starts from the following hypothesis: how did family farming experiences, which underwent similar planning concepts and public policies, in a given period, built different trajectories? In this sense, the investigation aimed to demonstrate the evolution of the rural development of Serra do Mel and the Baixo-Açu Project ,. since their creation, identifying and pointing out the main factors that determined the differentiation. It was assumed, then, that the construction of social capital, the integration of activities and insertion in competitive markets through the practice of commercialization, in both cases are fundamental, but hampered by the maintenance of practices or behaviors, negating the bases and values ​​of participatory action. The study found that the differences between the paths taken by Serra do Mel and by the Baixo-Açu Project are related to the combination of structural, institutional and cultural elements: the marked presence of the State; the institutional weakness of most management mechanisms and instruments; limited financial resources; technological insufficiency and deficiency; and the incompatibility of a model with political and cultural elements that contradict participation