The cooperativism as a strategy for strengthening family agriculture in Bahia

an analysis based on the Agricultural Census 2017

Abstract

The advance of family farming cooperativism has been considered a strategy to strengthen this category, with positive effects on rural territories. This expansion presents different dynamics, reflecting specific contexts of the Brazilian reality and its family farming. This article aims to discuss the socioeconomic conditions of family farmers in Bahia, focusing on family farming establishments inserted in cooperatives. It seeks to measure the role that cooperativism has played in strengthening family farming in the state. The methodology was based on data from the 2017 Agricultural Census, in the Sidra database, from the choice of selected variables aggregated in the following information: characteristics of agricultural establishments and producers, financial transactions and employed personnel. The results indicate that the insertion in cooperatives contributes, to a certain extent, to change productive/commercial and socioeconomic aspects of cooperative family farmers in Bahia, with greater production directed to commercialization, importance of income obtained in establishments and more technical assistance. In conclusion, advances are pointed out, but also the persistence of social vulnerability of a large part of family farming.

Keywords: Cooperatives. Family farmers. Territorial development.