1. Art and Diseño

EXPERIÊNCIAS EM AGROECOLOGIA
OFFPRINT
Intensification
without simplification:
a strategy for combating
desertification
Paulo Petersen, Luciano Marçal da Silveira and Adriana Galvão Freire
‘I
ntensify farming’ – this idea was and still is repeated by those championing industrial farming. For them this production model is the
only way to meet the critical challenge of feeding a burgeoning global
population expected to stabilize around 9 billion people by the mid twenty-first
century. Intensive farming is defined as a form capable of attaining high levels
of physical productivity, that is, higher volumes of production per unit of cultivated area. The intensification enabled by industrial farming, as promoted by the
technological packages of the so-called Green Revolution, has indeed obtained
significant rises in production levels. However it has also had a series of negative
environmental consequences related to the ecological simplification of agroecosystems caused by the widespread use of agrochemical-dependent monocrops
and heavy machinery.
One of the most alarming negative effects of the spread of this scientific-technological model has been the worsening of the processes behind the degradation
of arable lands. Estimates suggest that 12 million hectares are degraded worldwide
each year, a pace of natural resource consumption that seriously jeopardizes any
chances of solving the food dilemma faced by humanity. In the arid, semi-arid and
sub-humid regions of the planet where 44% of food production areas are located
and where 800 million people live, the problem is exacerbated by desertification, a
stage of soil degradation extremely difficult to reverse.
Given this challenging scenario, there is a clear and urgent need to implant
global public policies capable of reconciling the intensification of farming with
stemming and reversing the processes causing arable soil degradation. Based on
the experience accumulated by the NGO AS-PTA over 20 years working in an area
of Brazil’s semi-arid region that is subject to desertification,1 this article looks to
show how the agroecological approach enables this reconciliation. It does so not
only by encouraging the creation of innovative alternative technologies allowing
the sustainable use and management of farming soils, but also by stimulating the
enhancement of local institutions designed to regulate the social management of
natural resources so that these interact positively with economic activities.
A fertile Agreste2
Unlike most of the Brazilian semi-arid region, the Agreste region of Paraíba
is densely occupied by small-scale family farming. Historically it became established as the main food-producing region to Paraiba’s urban population. Situated
between the sugarcane monocropping along the coast and the cattle ranching
inland in the sertão3, the Agreste became shaped by cycles of peasantization and
depeasatization (Silveira et al. 2010). This alternation essentially accompanied
the equally cyclical interests of the rural elites as they occupied or abandoned
AS-PTA - Family Farming and Agroecology, works since 1993 in the semi-arid region of the state
of Paraíba (see www.aspta.org.br). Since 2011, the initiatives for reversing the effects of desertification in the Borborema region have been supported by the Terra Forte Project, co-funded by the
European Union.
1
2
In Portuguese the word Agreste features a double meaning: 1) a rough, inclement, rigorous environment;
2) A geographical region in the Brazilian Northeast, located between the humid forest in the coast and
the most drought region.
3
The term sertão originates from the word desertão (i.e. big desert) and was used by Portuguese colonizers to describe their perception of the physiognomy of the interior region, marked by the presence
of Caatinga vegetation (white forest in the Tupi language) typical of the Brazilian semi-arid conditions,
especially in contrast to the coastal region, occupied by dense tropical rainforest.
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2
portions of the territory in response
to the rise and fall of large-scale production of agricultural produce for
the major markets. This repeated
a pattern of territorial occupation
typical to agricultural space in Brazil
where family farmers move into areas
of little value to agroindustrial and financial capital, only to find their rights
under threat whenever the interest of
the latter in their lands reawakens.
The State’s numerous initiatives
in support of economic activities
based around monocropping within
a business-oriented farming model
played a key role in the intense and
systematic process of deforestation
of the region’s rural landscape: sisal in
the 1950s and 60s, herbaceous cotton (substituting arboreal cotton) in
the 1970s; artificial pastures from the
1980s onwards, and so on. The deleterious effects of replacing the plant
cover were most keenly felt in areas
possessing a more unstable topography and shallower soils, precisely
those more susceptible to erosive
processes. A large part of the huge
environmental liability resulting from
deforestation was subsequently assumed by rural communities settled
in the region following campaigns for
agrarian reform.
A wide variety of small-scale
agroecosystems were developed in
the spaces between the large rural
estates. These systems reflect the
equally diverse micro-environments
shaped by the gradual decline in precipitation levels from east to west, a
pattern resulting from the reduction
in rainfall coming from the ocean due
to the presence of the Serra da Borborema plateau. In a context marked
by the constant disputes with large
landowners over agricultural land and
faced by continuous fragmentation
of family units with the division of
plots by inheritance, the space available for ensuring the social and economic reproduction of family farming
dwindled generation by generation. Faced by these conditions, farming families found themselves obliged to intensify
production on their land, gradually reducing, until eventually abandoning, the practice of shifting cultivation (laying
fallow, burning and planting) traditionally used to restore
the fertility of the ecosystem. However this attempt to intensify production was not accompanied by innovations in
environmental management methods: these remained essentially extensive, dependent on the natural rhythms of
ecological regeneration.
Here, though, we need to ask why family farmers in
the region apparently ‘historically froze’ their management
practices. Indeed we need to question whether this freezing really took place. Studying the responses to demographic rises by different farming populations around the
world, Boserup (1981) showed that changes in the technological base were very often stimulated by a reduction in
the environmental resources available to sustain the local
population, especially cultivable land. In other words: increases in demographic density that led to land shortages
Photo: André Telles/ActionAind
The planting of seedlings of tree species for multiple use has favored restoring the
ecological functioning of agroecosystems in Borborema’s Territory
3
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would set off dynamics of technological innovation that tended towards
more intensive farming.3 One of the
main conclusions of Boserup’s work
is that there is no ‘agrarian ceiling’ or
‘natural support capacity’ for a particular region. Potential productivity
levels depend not only on the available ecological capital, but also on the
social and human capital capable of
continuously improving the technical
systems through investment in local
experimentation and innovation.
Returning to the earlier question:
were the land constraints imposed on
family farming in the Borborema region
responsible for triggering the local innovation that allowed an intensification
in land use on a more sustainable basis?
In another article we looked to show
that the region’s farmers were indeed
Esther Boserup’s work challenged the Malthusian thesis that demographic pressures on limited resources would inexorably lead to population decline.
However, this endogenous movement of family farmer experimentation
went unnoticed for a long time, meaning it was overlooked by public policies as
a source of practices and knowledge useful to agricultural intensification in the
region. The invisibility of the innovations locally developed and/or adapted by
farmers is explained above all by the conceptions of rural development widely
adopted in Brazil after the 1960s when the modernization paradigm came to
dominate the theory, practice and politics of official institutions working in the
area. By insisting that agricultural development depends on the incorporation
of exogenous technologies that enable farming to become more intensive and
thereby catch up with industry, the theory of modernization played an important role in delegitimizing the historical actions of farmers in producing and
socializing knowledge relating to agroecosystem management, as well as their
management of natural assets. Modernization was conceived to result, therefore, from the intervention of institutions and actors outside the farming sector,
denying the capacity of local populations to balance the economic, ecological,
social and cultural dimensions of development.
This form of conceiving farming subsequently informed the perceptions of
technicians, scientists and politicians who began to foreground some problems
in the dynamics of rural development at the cost of others. This helps explain
the predominance of short-term productivism as an economic approach, accompanied by a neglect for the ecological integrity of ecosystems and equity in the
distribution of the benefits of development. Given this reductionist and fragmen-
Photo: Adriana Galvão Freire
3
forced to seek creative solutions in order to improve and innovate on their forms of
agricultural management (...) based on living in close intimacy to ‘the unwritten codes
of nature,´ experimenting with multiple variations on the use and management of
local resources (Petersen et al. 2002 p. 23).
Effects of environmental degradation in Caatinga Biome
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Photo: André Telles/ActionAid
tary approach to rural problems, we
can also understand why institutional
frameworks shaped by the paradigm of
agricultural modernization very often
contradict the public measures intended to foster environmental conservation and social inclusion.
The development of a multi-sectorial perspective that contemplates
the complexity of the factors involved
in the processes of desertification now
spreading through the Brazilian semiarid region must be recognized, then, as
an indispensable condition for the phenomenon to be contained and reversed.
This signifies the need for a radical revision in the strategies employed to intensify the use of farmland.
From capital-based
intensification...
The dynamics of intensification
advocated by the modernization policies involved the increasing subordination of farming systems to the economies of scale regulating the operation
of the globalized agro-food markets,
leading in turn to the ecological simplification of rural landscapes through
the spread of monocropping. While
this style of intensification based on
massive capital inputs has resulted in
large-scale environmental degradation
in other Brazilian biomes, it promoted
even quicker and deeper negative effects in the Caatinga (biome of the
semi-arid region) due to the higher
ecological vulnerability of its ecosystems. In natural environments formed
by unpredictable rainfall patterns like
the Brazilian semi-arid region, the integrity of the ecological infrastructure is an indispensable condition for
the continuous recomposition of the
biological production capacity after
periods of drought. Damage to this capacity is most acutely expressed in the
processes of desertification, a severe
stage of environmental degradation
that can be understood as the ecosystem’s loss of ecological resilience owing to declining levels of soil fertility.
From the technical viewpoint,
this loss of resilience can be seen to
result from the generation of environmental conditions that combine
hydric stress – a phenomenon natural
to the region’s ecosystems – with nu-
The paved cisterns favor the creation of
microenvironments with high yield potential
tritional stresses caused by the heavy loss of nutrients from the environment
as the result of erosive processes.4 In their biological-evolutionary strategies,
the native plants of the Caatinga developed physiological mechanisms capable
of tolerating hydric stress, but not nutritional stress.5 In fact the physiological
strategies for living with these two environmental stresses are mutually divergent (Resende, n.d.), meaning that not even native plants are able to grow when
the soils become chemical impoverished, setting the conditions for desertification to take hold.
The areas in Paraíba’s Agreste region where the processes of soil degradation are the severest coincide with the terrains with more unstable relief and
where plant vegetation has been drastically reduced, leaving soils vulnerable to
erosion. In the most serious situations, the subsuperficial horizons of the soils are
exposed, compromising the physical, chemical and biological qualities needed for
plant growth.
Soil salinization is another factor behind desertification linked to the change in the nutritional dynamic
of the soils. This phenomenon is more frequent in areas of the semi-arid region where large irrigation
projects have been installed, meaning that it is not a common reality in the Agreste region of Paraíba.
4
5
Since they are shallow and little weathered, the soils of the Caatinga are relatively rich in chemical
5
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Photo: André Telles/ActionAid
…to labour-based intensification
Rather than adhering to models that aim to obtain more intensive farming
through specialized production and structural dependence on the markets, the focus on family farming’s innovative practices aims to mobilize, increase and develop
the locally available resource base. This strategic approach is undertaken through
the conversion of natural resources into goods and services for human consump-
tion. Arguing along these lines, Ploeg
(2008) emphasizes that the peasant
family farming model of production is
structured through dynamics of coproduction between people and nature.
In systemizing a broad and diverse set of innovative practices employed by family farmers in the region,
AS-PTA identified three main strategic
lines that guide this local process of
innovation: 1) maintaining and valuing
high functional biodiversity in agroecosystems; 2) accumulating and managing
stocks of resources; 3) the valorisation
of limited production spaces with a
high biological productivity potential
(PETERSEN et al. 2002).
Taken as a whole, the innovative
practices developed through these
strategies enable agrarian space to be
occupied in a mosaic form, configuring
an ecological infrastructure analogous
to natural ecosystems and, therefore,
capable of reproducing environmental
functions essential to the reproduction
of their fertility.
Box 1 shows the relation between
the three strategic lines adopted for the
management of agroecosystems and
the traditional and innovative practices
Box 1 – Relation between agroecosystem management principles and traditional and innovative practices
Practices
Management principles
Maintenance of high
functional biodiversity
Accumulation and
management of stocks
Traditional
•
•
•
•
Consortia
Use of native forage species
Use of local varieties
Hedge planting
•
•
•
•
•
•
Saving financial capital in form of cattle
•
Pits, cisterns, stone tanks, etc.
•
Domestic storage of seeds
•
Storage of crop leftovers as source of fodder
•
•
Valuing of limited spaces with
• House yards
a high potential for biological
• Intensive planting in low-lying areas
production
Source: adapted from Petersen et al. 2002.
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Innovative
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
6
•
•
•
•
Recuperation and multiplication of local varieties
Evaluation and introduction of new varieties
Tree planting around smallholdings
Alley cropping
‘productive forests’
Green manure
Planted cordons
Diversified production in house yards
Community seed banks
Underground dams
Slab cisterns and paved cisterns
Trench earthen dams
Silage and haymaking practices
Mixed palm fields
Manure reservoirs
Plant beds
Diversified and intensified production in house yards
Stone barriers
Intensification of production in yards through
the use of water stored in the paved cisterns
developed and/­or improved through the institution of sociotechnical networks at territorial level, based on the activities
of male and female experimenter-farmers.
Technically speaking, the practices listed in the box converge towards one central objective: the maximization and
regularization of the ecological processes that convert the environment’s basic abiotic resources (water, solar radiation and
nutrients) into biotic resources (vegetal and animal biomass)
without the need for external inputs and their increased dependency on the markets.
As they become incorporated into agroecosystems,
these practices combine with each other in complex ways,
forming an organic and indivisible whole. In this sense they acquire a multifunctional dimension by fostering positive knockon (systemic) impacts on the functioning of the agroecosystems. They are, therefore, consistent with the peasant family
farming approach of intensifying economic production without
simplifying ecological reproduction.
As Box 2 illustrates, the multifunctional dimension of
these innovative management practices enables an increase in
the ecological efficiency of the processes of converting natural assets into economic resources due to the continuous
recycling of nutrients, energy and water between the different
ecological subsystems and compartments of the agroecosystems involved. From this perspective, the integrated management of water and nutrients in family farming units emerges
as an essential condition for fertility to be continually regenerated, allowing high production levels to be sustained without industrial fertilizers, even when the areas cultivated are
used on a permanent basis.
At the same time, multifunctionality affords an increase
in productivity and a reduction in the harshness of manual
work, since the conversion processes involve a synergic integration of human labour and the work of nature. In other
words: ecological cycles and flows in agroecosystems are
­purposefully oriented to favour the efficiency of the conver-
Box 2 – The multifunctional dimension of management practices in Paraíba’s Agreste region
The complex management of water and nutrients in agroecosystem is essentially achieved by
managing the biomass and demands the use of technical strategies linked to a systemic approach. For
example: water storage in the 66 underground dams
and the 1132 paved cisterns already built in the region has created environments with a high potential for biological productivity by ensuring a stable
supply of water for use in production, independent
of climatic seasonality. By using different technical
strategies, families are able to converge nutrient
sources into small spaces (house yards, low-lying
ground, etc.), making it possible to extend the growing season and the number of species cultivated.This
practice, in turn, is consistent with the strategy of
increasing functional biodiversity in local systems, a
configuration that favours processes of nutrient recycling, water saving and biotic regulation (control of
insect-pest populations and pathogens). Meanwhile
the possibility of producing large volumes of forage
biomass in these environments enables an increase
in the livestock kept by family units without a corresponding rise in pressure on soils from overgrazing.
In addition, the increase in livestock produces extra
levels of manure, the primary mediator of fertility
between the animal and plant production subsystems. We can also highlight the 65 community seed
banks that enable both seed storage and the conservation of intra-specific agrobiodiversity, an essential
condition for the adaptation of production systems
to environmental qualities (soil, climate, etc.) and
local cultural preferences. Likewise the 640,000
seedlings of native and fruit-bearing tree species already planted have enabled the re-establishment of
key processes in the ecological functioning of local
ecosystems, beginning with the protection of soils
from erosion and the increase in nutrient recycling
in the soil-plant system. The 180 ecological ovens
built since 2011 have reduced the consumption of
firewood in households to a quarter, generating a
saving of 1080 cubic metres of firewood per year,
meaning a significant reduction in the pressure on
the arboreal component of agroecosystems, as well
as mitigating the negative effects of burning firewood on the health of those primarily responsible
for food preparation, namely women. Faced by the
pronounced climatic seasonality and the recurrent
risks of prolonged drought in the region, higher
levels of stabilization of the production capacity of
the systems are reached through various resource
storage strategies: water for human, animal and
agricultural consumption in small-scale infrastructures built on family properties and in rural communities; seed banks containing family and community seeds; organic fertilizer stored in manure
reservoirs; fodder stored in silos, hay making and
fields planted with xerophilic species: mixed palm
fields, mandacaru cactus hedges, etc.
Obs: Data until 2014
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Work rally to forage storage
Increased productive diversity and intensity in backyards
sion of ecological capital into economic resources without
causing a deterioration in environmental fertility.
Unlike the strategy of capital-based intensification of
production, therefore, labour-based intensification can be described as a ‘win-win’ strategy in which economic efficiency
and ecological efficiency feed back on each other to the benefit of the farming families and the integrity of the environment.
This approach to intensification is based on qualified labour, in the sense that it combines both physical and intellectual work. In other words the person carrying out the work
also takes the strategic decisions. This craftsmanship character of the work is indispensable to the systemic and complex
organization of the tasks and sub-tasks typically involved in
family farming production. However, the reproduction of this
artisanal approach depends on this knowledge being learnt
and continually enhanced through processes of observation
and experimentation, guided by local creative intelligence.
Seen from this viewpoint, in contrast to the technical guidelines prescribed by external agents, the knowledge associated with family farming is not expressed in inflexible rules:
instead it is continuously improved through social processes
of local innovation.
Along with the continuous generation of new ­methods
for managing agroecosystems, the territorially rooted d
­ ynamics
of innovation pursued by family farmers perform an important
role in the development of human capital: that is, the autonomous capacity to organize and improve work routines. In this
way, the endogenous processes of producing and s­ocializing
knowledge function as social spaces of empowerment. While
this aspect is essential for a historically marginalized social
sector like family farming, it performs an even more crucial
role for women farmers since they are subject to a double
form of culturally constructed domination: due to their condition as family farmers and due to their condition as women.
As they developed socially and grew in thematic complexity,
the networks of agroecological innovation in Paraíba’s Agreste
region were able to mobilize more than 1.000 women on a
permanent basis. As well as being active experimenters and
protagonists in the strategies for intensifying agricultural
production, these women, through their concrete practices,
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8
have taken on key roles in problematizing and confronting the
social inequalities linked to gender and the various forms of
violence to which they are subject.
The more active the mechanisms of social interaction
between farmers-experimenters, the more dynamic and wideranging the social networks of innovation tend to become in
terms of their thematic and social scope.6 This correlation is
confirmed in numerous ways in the Agreste region of Paraíba
and highlights the fact that the decisions put into practice by
individuals and/or families in the domestic sphere are heavily
conditioned by the collective dynamics of experimenting with
alternative ways of intensifying farm production now being
developed in the region. This challenges, therefore, the diffusionist approaches conventionally adopted by Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (ATER) entities, at the same time
as it emphasizes the importance of institutional frameworks
structured at territorial level for the management of resources, whether these are tangible (seeds, biodiversity, water, land,
work, etc.) or intangible (knowledge, norms, values, etc.).
The role of institutional arrangements
in the territory
AS-PTA’s experience in advisoring family farming organizations from Paraíba’s Agreste region shows that local networks of innovation become catalysed when farmer
experimentation is socially valued and institutionally supported. Proof of this can be found in the processes of
creating and consolidating the Borborema Union and Family Farming Organization Pole, involving 15 rural workers
unions, a regional association of agroecological farmers
and 150 grassroots community organizations. Acting as
As Sabourin observes (2009), the more peasant communities become
closed off through increasingly limited forms of proximity, family reciprocity or interpersonal connections, and the more dominated and marginalized
they become, the more isolated, discrete or even invisible innovation will be. The
reverse situation logically applies: the more intense social interactions are, the
greater the flow of knowledge in the networks of local innovation.
6
Box 3: Social devices for collective action
an instance of political-organizational
management of these networks of local innovation at territorial level, the
Pole performs a decisive role in mediating the social dynamics involved
in agroecological intensification with
official bodies. In this way, the Pole
directly executes and influences the
elaboration of a broad set of programs and public policies consistent
with its strategic aim of strengthening
family farming.7
A particularly important aspect
of the Pole’s activities is linked to the
fact that the public policies mobilized to
foment the dynamics of rural development are implemented through decentralized social initiatives focused on the
management of common goods. Box 3
shows some of these collective forms
of action that have been helping boost
the efficiency of the collective management of these goods.
Contradicting the famous hypothesis of The Tragedy of the Commons
(Hardin 1968),8 the collective action
initiatives developed in the Agreste
region of Paraíba demonstrate the capacity of family farming to construct
and maintain institutional configurations that are locally adapted to the
governance and the efficient and sustainable use of scarce resources indispensable to the labour-based intensification of production.
The Pole performs this institutional mediation
through its interaction with public bodies
operating at different levels and managing
­different resources: municipal, state and national
governments and the Territorial Development
Committee (an entity linked to the territorial
development policy of the MDA (Ministry of
Agrarian Development). Along with AS-PTA, it
also works to mobilize international cooperation
resources towards strengthening its ­project for
the territory.
7
In a famous article that functioned for a long
time as reference work in the elaboration of environmental policies, Hardin (1968) postulated
that individuals and groups who depend on the
same environmental resources to reproduce
themselves inevitably fall into the trap of overexploitation and, consequently, provoke ecological degradation. According to the author, avoiding this scenario requires ensuring that access to
these common goods is limited by rules imposed
by a government body or that they come under
private sector management.
8
1) Shared management of equipment. Unions and associations linked to the
Pole organized to collectively run a network of 10 mobile silage machines
funded by the Territorial Development Program of the Ministry of Agrarian
Development (MDA). These machines are used to build silos, allowing the
storage of cattle feed for consumption during the dry periods of the year. Circulation of the machines is regulated by locally defined rules and is associated
with community work rallies (mutirão in Portuguese) that process the large
volumes of forage biomass produced by a variety of plant species grown in
the smallholdings.As well as enabling many families to obtain animal fodder in
a short time scale, this system stimulates the intensification of the planting of
forage species with the potential for use in silage production.This institutional
arrangement benefits around 280 families with an average annual input of 4
tonnes of fodder. Like the silage machines, a set of fruit pulpers is managed
by community mutirões. The use of these machines enables large volumes of
native and exotic fruits to be processed for sale during harvest periods, performing an important role in stimulating the planting of fruit species.
2) Collective practices for preserving and reproducing biodiversity. A network of
65 community seed banks enables a large portion of the agrobiodiversity
heritage to be conserved and made available for planting as soon as the
rains arrive. As well as being adapted to environmental conditions and local cultivation systems, the ‘passion seeds’ – as they are known locally – assure greater autonomy and security to families in running their farms. The
network of nurseries producing tree seedlings (forest and fruit species)
is another initiative that has provided hundreds of families with access to
diverse and high-quality genetic material. Managed by unions and community associations, this network formed by seven nurseries was developed
as a system to reforest the agricultural landscape with multi-use species.
A network of male and female farmers responsible for collecting forest
seeds subsequently became associated with the seedling network, stimulating the creation of a social group with the knowledge and practices to
propagate native tree species. In order to facilitate seedling production,
the nurseries very often make use of work rallies.
3) Community work rallies (mutirões). As we have seen above, this practice is
widespread in family farming regions and is also used for the construction
of small infrastructural works linked to the capture, transportation and
storage of rainfall water, which have been essential to the development of
a vast and intricate water supply network designed to meet the multiple
demands of family farmers.
4) Community savings and financing. The Solidary Revolving Funds (FRS)
mechanism has been used to enable the purchase of the equipment and
inputs needed to intensify the production of agroecosystems: water supply infrastructures, ecological ovens, netting for protecting yards, zinc silos,
small animals, etc.
5) Organizing access to markets. A network of 8 agroecological fairs in the
region’s municipalities, as well as collective sales in institutional markets,
allows the diverse produce typical to family farming to be marketed, increasing the remuneration of the work of family producers.
Obs: Data until 2014
9
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Although the real-world context described here p­ ossesses
unique features that cannot be replicated in other contexts,
it broadly echoes situations found in various other regions of
the planet where family farming is present. Evaluating the design and establishment of family farming institutions oriented
towards natural resource management, Elinor Ostrom, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2009, observed that
the most successful are those adapted to local contexts (Ostrom 1990). This implies that the institutional configurations
with the most positive results should emerge from collective
actions that use the resource base present in the territory
itself. These approaches can be cultivated therefore through
public incentives that open up spaces for creative capacities
and collective potentials for self-organization to become developed autonomously.
On the other hand, public programs and policies designed according to the modernization paradigm tend to
hinder, or indeed completely block, the emergence of family
farming institutions aimed towards the economic-ecological
management of the territory’s resources. Informed by technical guidelines controlled by agents of the State or the markets,
business-focused farm management encourages the formation of social environments dominated by individualism and
competition, creating the conditions for the Tragedy of the
Commons to materialize. Indeed this can be seen as one of the
key reasons behind the spread of desertification processes in
Brazil’s semi-arid region.
Peasant Family farming and agroecological
intensification
Peasant Family farming is the institutional form most
­suited to reproducing styles of agricultural development based
on intensification without simplification. Its organization of
work focuses on valuing the locally available resource base in
sustainable form. Through social regulation mechanisms typical to peasant agriculture, such as reciprocity and mutual aid,
and due to the artisanal nature of the work involved, a variety
of resources are liberated for the production process and
used carefully and parsimoniously without the need for any
kind of subjection to market rules.
The experience in the Agreste region of Paraíba
­ emonstrates that, even in hostile conditions, family farming
d
can act positively towards reversing desertification processes
by occupying agricultural space with culturally constructed
landscapes that meet the economic, ecological and social
objectives of society simultaneously. However the increase
in the social and geographical scale of initiatives like this demands the opening up of spaces for family farming to develop
its latent capacities. This implies, first of all, democratizing the
physical space through agrarian reform that amplifies the territorial scale of the management of natural resources under
family farming management. It also implies moving beyond the
modernization paradigm in the design and implementation
of public policies. This signifies the institutionalization of the
agroecological approach among State institutions so the latter
can interact with the territorially-rooted socio-technical networks needed for the ‘trigger of local innovation’ to remain
active. The shift beyond modernization is also expressed in
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10
the social construction of local markets, an essential condition for the biodiversity present in agroecosystems to be economically valued and monocrops discouraged.
Finally the experience recounted here highlights the
fact that the intensification of economic production without
ecological simplification of the agroecosystems used is both
possible and essential for desertification to be successfully
combatted. To this end it needs to be recognized that this
dramatic socioenvironmental problem is unlikely to be solved
through reductionist initiatives of regulatory state bodies, or
through market mechanisms that usurp the territorial rights
of rural communities.
Paulo Petersen
executive coordinator of AS-PTA
[email protected]
Luciano Marçal da Silveira
technical advisor at AS-PTA
coordinator of the Terra Forte Project
[email protected]
Adriana Galvão Freire
technical advisor at AS-PTA
[email protected]
References
BOSERUP, E. Population and technological change; a study
of long-term trends. Chicago, University of Chicago, 1981.
HARDIN, G. The Tragedy of the Commons. In: Science no.
162, 1968.
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Project
EXPERIÊNCIAS EM AGROECOLOGIA
ISSN: 1807-491X
Revista Agriculturas: experiências em agroecologia
Offprint from V.9, N.3 Edition
Revista Agriculturas: experiências em agroecologia is a publication of
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