Agricultura familiar e os mercados institucionais: análise do programa nacional de alimentação escolar

Abstract

Family farming started to stand out from the 1990s, based on academic recognition as a social and analytical category, and the State, with the creation of specific policies such as the National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (PRONAF), created in 1996. In Brazil, it is only in the last decades that the eyes turn to the familiar farmers. Even within a scenario that guides development, family agriculture faces several barriers and challenges in accessing markets. When talking about markets in a broader way, these barriers range from access to land, credit and technological innovations. From this context, the objective of the present study is to analyze the dynamics of the National School Feeding Program as a commercialization channel for family agriculture in the period from 2009 to 2014. To achieve this objective, it was made the characterization of family farming and markets institutional frameworks, being presented soon after the National School Feeding Program from its creation to the recent modifications. To answer the main objective of the present study, it was verified the evolution of credit availability and the number of access in the period from 2009 to 2014, as well as the identification of the obstacles and challenges that the family farmers found to access the National Food Program School. The research is characterized as qualitative and exploratory; the technique used was a bibliographic review from the analysis of secondary data obtained on the website of the National Fund for Education Development. The main results are that the dynamics of food programs such as PNAE, guarantee a fresh, healthy, and quality food according to local cultural habits, as well as a boost to the development of family farming through the flow of their production in access to the institutional market. It is also worth noting that there is an increasing evolution in the amounts delivered through the program, even though the number of students has stagnated during the period analyzed. Regarding the obstacles and challenges suffered by family agriculture in access to PNAE, bottlenecks to be addressed are diverse, but one of the alternatives (facilitating, assisting farmers in accessing the PNAE) is to insert the farmer into cooperatives and associations so that he can be assisted in the program process.