Peaches don't fall from the sky

working relations and family agriculture in the Pelotas-RS region

Abstract

One of the fundamental features that define family farming is the centrality of domestic work in production processes. However, the evidence is clear that demographic changes, especially the aging process of the rural labor force, produce a series of implications for the way in which these farms operate today, which calls into question their continuity. This phenomenon strongly impacts the southern states of Brazil, especially Rio Grande do Sul. It is in the extreme south of ‘gaucho’ that the cultivation of peaches was implanted in the 19th century by European immigrants, which is mainly conducted on family farms. Production can be used both for canning and for in-natural consumption. It is a crop that occupies an expressive number of external workers (sappers) in pruning, thinning operations and especially in the harvest. However, in recent years there has been a flagrant decline in the availability of rural labor as a result of the demographic transformations that have occurred in the countryside. The main objective of the article is to analyze the woven labor relations between producers and workers employed during the production cycle. This investigation carried out in-depth interviews and other methodological resources. The study brought to light the invisibility of the relationships contracted between producers and the labor force employed during the production cycle, in addition to the rules that govern its operation, the forms of hiring, conditions offered to workers and the importance of family farming in the occupation of labor and generation of rural income.

Keywords: Family Farming. Rural labour force. Peach production. Pluriactivity.