Agroindústrias familiares: um estudo de redes alimentares alternativas de Tupanciretã-RS

Abstract

One of the main dilemmas faced by family farming is in the control about the process in which it carries out its economic/productive activities. One of the ways in which alternative food systems can be built and their combined effect, to facilitate a sustainable transition, lies in new arrangements that combine production and consumption, which goes beyond farmers solving the problems caused by rising costs and reduced returns in a hostile environment. In this sense, the business model adopted by small farmers who integrate processing and marketing in agricultural activities is one of the solutions to the difficulties faced. Given this scenario, using a qualitative approach, it was sought to verify these initiatives adopted by family farmers in the city of Tupanciretã-RS, which is located in a productivist context, coordinated by agents linked to global value chains, privileged by high productive factors, thus producing one of the largest soybean crops in Rio Grande do Sul, identified as the capital of soybeans. However, a series of economic/productive activities operated by small farmers heterogeneize a context marked by socioeconomic homogeneity in the municipality. Thus, one of the guidelines that family farmers adopt to increase added value is domestic production and market orientation. In its economic-productive strategies, the agro-industrialization of products into final foods employs peculiar techniques inherent to the traditions and heritage of the farmers who produce them. Therefore, the objective of the present work is to develop a product of a niche segment endowed with quality. This translates into the method adopted, condensed into a food with attributes linked to colonial, homemade and artisanal aspects, which is dissociated from the imperative specialized and intensified production mode that is practiced in the agricultural sector of the municipality. In this way, the agro-industrialization of these foods produced by family farmers is linked to their local origin. Thus, this pattern of reconnection between producers and consumers crystallizes around the notion of short marketing circuits, while this practice adopted by families is divided between direct sales, with home deliveries (on the property), institutional purchases (at agricultural fairs and in colonial houses) or through channels mediated by these houses, bakeries and mini-markets. This new arrangement, therefore, combines strategies focused on the mode of operation and commercialization, evidencing elements of reconnection between agriculture, food, local economies and territory. In addition, family agro-industries adopt measures that guarantee them a greater degree of autonomy, as well as a double reconfiguration of the agricultural sector of the municipality, through the bond developed with consumers, where they weave new relevance for family farmers.