Smallholder Farmers, Management, Cooperation and the Complex Social-Ecological System

• Grant number: 16/07756-1
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: June 01, 2017
• End date: November 30, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Celia Regina Tomiko Futemma
• Grantee: Celia Regina Tomiko Futemma
• Host Institution: Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas Ambientais (NEPAM). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Fabio de Castro
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/13444-8 - Smallholder farmers, management, cooperation and the complex social-ecological system, BP.TT; 18/13445-4 - Small farmers, governance, cooperation and socialecological complex systems, BP.TT

Abstract

Small-scale farmers or smallholder farmers, in Brazil, face numerous and complex set of challenges. On one hand, in the past, rural properties used to hold mostly a productive function, more recently, it has changed due to external pressures and farmers have had to fulfill some other functions within rural properties, such as environmental and labor legal requirements. On the other hand, new opportunities were opened to these farmers that might contribute to them to conciliate all these multiple functions, such as environmental services and/or rural tourism. However, changing or adding new forms of rural activities and meeting new legal requirements are not easy; quite contrary, it is a hard situation, costly and likely unfeasible to achieve by a single family farmer. Thus, the new reality in the Brazilian countryside calls for news forms of governing a rural property through rural organizations and forms of cooperation between farmers and other stakeholders who are directly or indirectly involved in the rural activities. To address these issues, our main goal here is to analyze and understand the new forms of institutional arrangements geared towards rural organizations, forms of cooperation and mode of governing rural properties among small-scale farmers from the states of Pará (Amazon region) and São Paulo (Southeast region) of Brazil. The conceptual model of Complex Socio-Ecological System (SSE) will be used in this study to analyze governance of rural properties that are embedded in complex regional landscape composed of diversity of stakeholders and diversity ecosystems. We expect that our results and findings will contribute to public policies with regard to rural development and to promote good practices in managing natural resources and rural properties as well as to guarantee rural families welfare (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

FUTEMMA, CELIA; DE CASTRO, FABIO; BRONDIZIO, EDUARDO S.. Farmers and Social Innovations in Rural Development: Collaborative Arrangements in Eastern Brazilian Amazon. LAND USE POLICY, v. 99, DEC 2020. (12/51045-1, 16/07756-1, 18/13444-8, 18/50041-9)