Deep Roots

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Public policies for family farming in Brazil:

towards a sustainable development model

Laudemir André Müller, Minister of Agrarian Development, Brazil

n recent years the concept of development has

been increasingly linked to sustainability. Indeed,

at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable

Development in Rio in 2012, world leaders recognized the

need to strengthen the three dimensions of sustainable

development – economic, social and environmental – in

a balanced and integrated way. Rural populations, and

family farmers in particular, are increasingly seen as a

part of the solution.

Since 2003, Brazil has undergone a political transformation

leading to the creation of a large and dense network of public

policies for family farming in partnership with rural social

movements. The creation, expansion and fine-tuning of specific

public policies for family farming is the main nexus for resolv-

ing a triple paradox of family farming worldwide, being:

• the main source of employment and income while

representing most of the extreme poor (economic

dimension)

• the main provider of food while constituting the majority

of the world’s hungry (social dimension)

• the main actor responsible for sustainable management

of natural resources and conserving biodiversity, but also

the sector most vulnerable to climate change and the loss

of biodiversity (environmental dimension).

During the military regime from the 1960s to the 1980s, Brazil

focused mainly on developing capital-intensive, large-scale,

export-driven agriculture. The subsequent democratiza-

tion process – significantly driven by organized segments of

civil society including rural social movements – enabled the

marginalized rural poor to be taken into account by government

institutions, eventually resulting in the creation of the Ministry

of Agrarian Development (MDA) in 1999. Participatory institu-

tions and mechanisms at municipal, territorial and state level,

and a National Council for Sustainable Rural Development,

have enabled a rich, permanent dialogue between rural social

movements and government representatives.

Another milestone was the approval of the Family Farming

Bill in 2006, which consolidated the nascent public policies

and the national registry system by which individual family

farms and cooperatives become eligible to access the ministry’s

different policies. These measures have all been fundamental

to the success of Brazil’s rural development strategy, and are

the result of persistent government commitment to prioritize

the strengthening of family farming.

Economic sustainability

Eradicating poverty is considered the most pressing global

challenge today, and can only be achieved by addressing the

concerns of rural populations. About 70 per cent of the 1.4

billion people below the poverty line live in rural areas, many

among the world’s estimated 2.6 billion family farmers. In

many parts of the global south, there is unexplored potential

for labour-intensive productivity rises in small and medium-

scale production, which can only be met with the creation of

specific public policies for this sector.

In 2003, most of Brazil’s 4.3 million family farms – which

employ 74 per cent of the country’s agricultural labour –

had no access to credit or other policies and were engaged

mainly in subsistence farming. MDA created a set of policies

which have expanded in range and scale to increase cover-

age and account for the rising production of family farmers.

For instance, the budget of the National Programme for the

Strengthening of Family Farming (PRONAF), which provides

public and private loans at preferential rates to family farmers,

has risen tenfold since 2003, reaching R$24.1 billion in 2014.

Likewise, public investment to rebuild a national system of

Family farming provides most of the food consumed in Brazil

Image: Eduardo Aigner

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