Um olhar

Abstract

This research aims at understanding the spatial organization of the peasant family-based farming in the Renascer Settlement, in Canguçu, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, from the perspective of multifunctionality. This work started with a bibliographical research about the analytical and normative category of family-based farming and the notion of multifunctionality of agriculture. Subsequently, fieldwork was performed in order to collect primary information and, from a semi-structured script, fifteen settlement families were surveyed. The results of this study show that the peasant family-based farming practiced within the Renascer Settlement converges to fulfill the social, economic, cultural and environmental functions associated to it and reinforced by the idea of multifunctionality. Thus, the social and economic reproduction of families is mainly guaranteed by the income from agricultural work and, in a lesser extent, from non-agricultural work, pensions and financial aid from the Brazilian social security system. Household food security is ensured by the self-consumption production from all the interviewed households, and contributes to the consumption of society in general by selling part of their production to the market. The maintenance of the social and cultural fabric occurs through the preservation of ancestral eating habits and farming practices, as well as the prevalence of mutual help and cooperation between neighbors and relatives, and the involvement of the interviewed families with religion and their participation in associations, cooperatives and unions. Finally, in the lots surveyed, there are practices of conservation of natural resources and preservation of the rural landscape. These elements, related to each other, converge to the valorization and strengthening of the social category of family-based farming in the contemporary rural world.