Food processing by family farming in Rio Grande do Sul through the lenses of the 2017 agricultural census

Abstract

This article aims to characterize family farming establishments in Rio Grande do Sul in which there is processing and transformation of products and to analyze basic conditions that allow inferring to what extent these establishments can comply with the current sanitary regulations. The article considers the debate around family farming, the informal sector, informality and illegality, based on data from the 2017 Agricultural Census, considering in particular five groups of products that stand out for their relevance: beef, pork and other meats unspecified (all of them fresh); embedded; and cheese and “requeijão” cheese. The results show the importance of this activity and also its limits, especially in relation to its scale, its secondary character in relation to other activities and access to technical guidance and school education, which restricts the possibilities of a significant number of families regularize this activity.

Keywords: Family-based Agroindustry. Informality. Informal sector. Processing and transformation.