times of crisis, usually associated with prolonged droughts. It is also essential in promoting agroecological practices, systematizing knowledge, training farmers, and accessing public policies. Some relationships are formalized and regulated by the Seed Exchange Network Management and Organization Manual (Mangoris). Others involve interactions that are organized through informal rules in the day-to-day operations of the network. The provisions contained in the Manual reinforce the importance of RIS. A representative of the Massapê-CE STTR warned that “it is no use just building seed houses”, organization is necessary. At planting time, 80% of the total amount of seeds stored by members can be withdrawn, and 20% of reproductive material originally made available by each associate remains in the house to guarantee the stock longevity, preventing eventual risks, especially droughts, that may jeopardize the harvest and seed replacement.

The withdrawal of seeds generates a “loan receipt”. After harvesting, the total volume loaned should be increased by an amount of seed, equivalent to 20%, generating the “return receipt.” According to the Manual, the person responsible for receiving the seed is called a “selector.” His or her main attribution is to verify if the seeds received are of good quality and healthy, with no signs of disease, hydric stress, or holes.

The composition of the stocks in the seed houses somewhat reflects their importance for the food and nutritional security of families and the conservation of agricultural and food biodiversity in the semi-arid. A survey conducted through a partnership established between RIS Sobral and Embrapa, involving 76 of the 81 existing seed houses in 2018, counted 13,087 liters of seeds (the unit of measurement used by RIS is the liter of PET bottle where seeds are stored), divided into 12 categories: beans, corn, fava beans, sorghum, sesame, rice, *jeri-mum* (pumpkin), cucumber, okra, watermelon, cotton, and native and fruit species. Maize and beans stand out, accounting for 98% of the bottles stored. These crops have a dual function, being used to feed families and animals. The category “native plants and fruit trees” is also noteworthy. Among the 22 types of seeds included in this category, 18 were considered native by the farmers. These type of seeds are stored to “preserve nature, taking care of the plants of the Caatinga.”<fnref n="6" /> The native species are used for the extraction of firewood, building fences, mud houses, roofs, and can also serve as food for the animals. It is interesting to note, in the universe of action of the Sobral RIS, the links established by the seeds in their circulation, with different public policies. These connections are organized through a framework of action structured around the idea of living with the semi-arid, encompassing (from the perspective of social organizations) the following

<footnote n="6">⁶ Seasonally dry land vegetation that has the Brazilian Northeast as its area of occurrence. The word Caatinga is also used to designate the ecoregion where this vegetation occurs.</footnote>
elements: the decentralized supply of water for consumption and production, the management of plants and animal breeds adapted to semi-arid conditions, stockpiling, the sustainable management of the Caatinga, technical assistance guided by the principles of agroecology and, above all, by the participation of the populations that work and live in the semi-arid in the construction of public policies (BAPTISTA; CAMPOS, 2013).

The importance of the decentralized water supply for human consumption ensured through the cisterns implemented through the One Million Cisterns Program (P1MC) was highlighted repeatedly during visits to farmers linked to RIS, and the first thing offered to visitors was ice-cold water. In many of the home gardens visited, the second-water cisterns (for production and animal consumption) that had been installed through the One Land and Two Waters Program (P1+2) enabled the production of a wide diversity of food throughout the year. Managed usually by women, home gardens are shelter to a wide diversity of plants (fruit trees, medicinal plants, vegetable gardens, and crops), making it possible to raise small animals. The symbiosis established between the Casas de Sementes, political participation, and home gardens strengthened the organization of productive groups of women, such as the group organized in the Cajazeiras Community in the Forquilhas-CE municipality. This group used the collective space available for seed storage as a kitchen for processing bread, cake, and sweets, marketed through public procurement programs such as the National School Meals Program (PNAE) and the Food Acquisition Program (PAA).

We were also surprised that the loan receipts issued by the Seed Houses were used by farmers as proof of their entitlement to retirement pension. The capacity of local organizations to face a series of political and institutional discontinuities, articulating different public policies and adapting them to the reality experienced by farming families stands out. Through interaction with government programs and actions, the organizational structure of the seed banks was expanded and qualified promoting initiatives such as the Semi-arid Seeds program, coordinated by ASA and operated at the biome level, and the Ecoforte Program, funded by the Banco do Brasil Foundation (FBB) and the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES). However, it is important to highlight that the social fabric built by RIS and, more broadly, the networks of social organizations mobilized around a project for coexistence with the semi-arid over the past decades was of fundamental importance for the collective initiatives for seed storage to remain active over time, through droughts. Rebuilding stocks remains as a significant practice for farmers in their daily lives.
## Final considerations

Throughout their trajectory, the Seed Houses have affirmed themselves as a collective device capable of expanding the resistance capacity of farmers in the semi-arid region of Ceará to droughts and inequalities regarding access to land, water, and biodiversity. The collective storage of seeds constitutes a socially and ecologically contextualized alternative that emerges in a collective process of struggle for autonomy.

It has become commonplace to say that the strengthening of social organizations contributes to climate change adaptation. We break with a mere managerial view of adaptation dynamics, valuing the struggles, experiences, and meanings attributed by social actors to the continuity of life in the semi-arid region by adopting a historical perspective on the processes of social organization. The expansion of a decentralized water supply and the collective management of biodiversity stocks are decisive elements in the lives of populations. However, issues related to access to land, discussed by farmers in that discrete little room in Alto Brilhante in the 1970s, remain important. “The Bank was never just about seeds. The subject of the seed bank keeps opening up.”

## References

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* BAPTISTA, N. Q.; CAMPOS, C. H. A convivência com o Semiárido e suas potencialidades. In:

* CONTI, I. L.; SCHROEDER, E. O. Convivência com o Semiárido brasileiro: autonomia e protagonismo social, Brasília: Editora IABS, 2013. p. 51-58.

* BESERRA, B.L. R. Movimentos sociais no campo do Ceará (1950-1990). Imprensa Universitária, 2015.

* BEUSCART, J.S.; PEERBAYE, A. Histoires des dispositifs (introduction). Terrains & Travaux, v. 11, p. 3-15, 2006-2.

* DIAS, M. M. As ONGs e a construção de alternativas para o desenvolvimento rural: um estudo a partir da Assessoria e Serviços a Projetos em Agricultura Alternativa (AS-PTA). Tese de Doutorado, Curso de Pós-Graduação em Desenvolvimento, Agricultura e Sociedade – CPDA. Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, 2004.

* DODIER, N.; BARBOT, J. La force des dispositifs. Annales HSS, v. 2, p. 421-448, 2016.

* ESCOBAR, A. Whose knowledge, Whose nature? Biodiversity conservation and the political ecology of social movements. Journal of Political Ecology, v. 5, p. 53-82, 1998.

* ESPLAR. Relatório do I Encontro da Rede de Intercâmbio de Sementes (RIS-CE). Esplar, 1992.
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MARENGO, J. A.; TORRES, R. R.; ALVES, L. M. Drought in Northeast Brazil – past, present and future. *Theoretical and Applied Climatology*, v. 129, p. 1189-1200, 2017.

MARTINS, J. S. *A militarização da questão agrária no Brasil*. Editora Vozes, 1984.

PLOEG, J. D. van der. The new peasaries: Rural development in times of globalization. Earthscan/Routledge, 2018.

REDE PTA. *Seminário de Sementes da Rede PTA: estratégias para a autonomia na produção de sementes. AS-PTA*, 1994.

SANTOS, A. P. S.; ALBUQUERQUE JR., D. M.; BRAGA, R. A. P.; LIMA, R. A. et al. *O encolhimento das águas*: o que se vê e o que se diz sobre crise hídrica e convivência com o semiárido. INSA, 2018.

SCHMITT, C. J.; PORTO, S. I.; LOPES, H. R.; LONDRES, F. et al. Redes de agroecologia para o desenvolvimento dos territórios – aprendizados do Programa Ecoforte. Articulação Nacional de Agroecologia, 2020.

TAYLOR, M. *The political ecology of climate change adaptation: livelihoods, agrarian change and the conflicts of development*. Earthscan/Routledge, 2015.

VERNOOY, R.; SHRESTHA, P.; STHAPIT, B. The rich but little known chronicles of community seed banks in: VERNOOY, Ronnie; SHRESTHA, Pitambar. STHAPIT, Bhuwon. (Eds). Community seed banks: origins, evolution and prospects, London/ New York: Earthscan/Routledge, 2015. p. 1-7.
<figure><img src="image_22.png" /></figure>
CHAPTER 10

Agroecological transition in the
Mandacaru settlement, Petrolina/
Pernambuco, and Brazilian
semi-arid region: collective
action, organic production, and
socio-technical networks

Helder Ribeiro Freitas, Lúcia Marisy Souza Ribeiro de Oliveira, Rita de Cássia Rodrigues Gonçalves-Gervásio, Cristiane Moraes Marinho, Denes Dantas Vieira, Elson de Oliveira, Lucas Ricardo Souza Almeida

Introduction

This text describes and analyzes the agroecological transition process of the Man-
dacaru settlement, located in the municipality of Petrolina - Pernambuco, in the
semi-arid region of the São Francisco sub-medium. It is a rereading and updating
of the analysis of the publication in the *journal Extramuros* (FREITAS et al., 2015)
that reported the advances observed in that agrarian reform settlement from the
implementation of the community organic garden to the different socio-produc-
tive activities and their links with other enterprises and social networks.

The occupation of the area where the population of Mandacaru is settled
today took place in 1999; it was established on a farm adjacent to the Senador
Nilo Coelho Irrigated Perimeter (PINC). Later, in 2001, the area was officially
recognized by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform
(INCRA) as a settlement, with its first organic production initiative in 2009 and
the implementation of the community organic garden. Thenceforth, the settle-
ment became a space for learning and experimentation of various practices and
socio-organizational processes on agroecological transitions in family farming in
the context of the irrigated perimeters of the Sertão do São Francisco. Living with
drought in the settlement has also been a constant learning process in the context
of socio-technical adaptations of the families from the context of PINC water access limitations to their recent achievement. A landmark was the partnership established in 2005 with the Federal University of São Francisco Valley (UNIVASF), where teachers and students from various courses at the University began to provide training in various areas of knowledge to seek appropriate solutions to various problems. In 2013, the Center for Studies in Agroecology - NEA Sertão Agroecológico of UNIVASF began to discuss with farmers actions to promote agroecology in the territory in a network context, together with other institutions and organizations that make up the Rede Territorial de Agroecologia do Sertão do São Francisco Baiano e Pernambucano.<fnref n="1" />

This articulation has been added to other initiatives of socio-technical articulation in the field of agroecology and organic production in the territory, among which the creation of the Association of Organic Producers in the São Francisco Valley (APROVASF) stands out and through which the settlement has participated in this network action that promotes agroecological transition in the territory. We can highlight the implementation of certified organic produce fairs in Petrolina and Juazeiro and various articulations for the commercialization of organic food and other products produced by the Mandacaru settlement and other partner communities around the settlement via public policies for food security and access to markets for family farming products.

The partnership between the agrarian reform settlement and UNIVASF has generated relationships of trust and collaboration, enabling the execution of participatory research in agroecology, horizontal discussions between academia and popular social movements, thematic seminars; and fairs for the commercialization and dissemination of organic products to the population and various courses demanded by the families of the settlement. Thus, this chapter describes and critically analyzes the experience from the collective construction perspective and articulation of the initiative with the socio-technical networks operating in the local and regional context, its achievements, obstacles, lessons, and challenges in dialogue with other agroecological transition initiatives in the Sertão do São Francisco.

Accordingly, the text was organized into five sections. The first addresses the foundations and concepts that guide the analysis of the experience, such as agroecological transition, collective action, organic production, and socio-technical networks.

<footnote n="1">¹ This network was proposed by the NEA Sertão Agroecológico and constituted during the III National Agroecology Meeting (ENA) organized by the National Agroecology Articulation held at UNIVASF in 2014. The proposal for the formation of the Territorial Network of Agroecology of the Sertão do São Francisco came from a self-managed workshop that “aims [...] to create a space for dialogue and convergence for the construction of agroecological knowledge from the ongoing experiences in various locations in the Sertão do São Francisco”(ENA, 2014: 148p).</footnote>
In the following section, the territory and the context in which the experi-
ence was developed are described. The third section noted the methodological
aspects of the analysis of the experience and its stages to enable the construc-
tion of the fourth section, which described the socio-historical trajectory of the
experience.

In the final section of the paper, the experience was analyzed in the light of
the central concepts on which the work is based, qualifying the main lessons and
the challenges faced by settlers during the experience for the agrological transition
in the space of work and life.

Agroecological transition: from concept to experiences

Different studies try to explain the multiple proposals for agriculture, ranging
from industrial, focused on economic productivity, to the so-called alternative
agriculture, incorporating organic, natural, biodynamic, ecological, permaculture
concepts (KHATOUNIAN, 2001; GLIESSMAN, 2015). Agroecology is linked to
ecological-based agriculture, recognized as a science since the 1980s to promote
socio-environmental changes and improve the quality of life of the population
using it. It aims to gradually substitute agrochemical production models for
agricultural styles based on sustainable principles, methods, and technologies
(CAPORAL; COSTABEBER, 2001).

The concept of agroecological transition encompasses various stages and degrees of evolution (HILL, 1985) and considers different scales, from local (plot/farm), through territorial, to global, social, economic, and environmental dimensions (CAPORAL; COSTABEBER, 2004; GUZMÁN, 2013; GLIESSMAN, 2015; TITONELL, 2019).

According to Gliessman (2015), this process has a dynamic character and
originally comprises three levels: gain in system efficiency, substitution of inputs,
and redesign of the agro-ecosystem (HILL, 1985). Gliessman (2015) proposes
two more levels for this same process based on new studies. Level 4 promotes
the (re)connection between consumers and farming families through alternative
local/territorial food networks. Level 5 of the transition highlights the construc-
tion of a global agri-food system based on equity, participation, democracy, and
social justice that promotes the restoration and protection of life support systems
on Earth.

The concept of transition has been changing throughout its constitution.
Initially, this process was perceived as an evolutionary "conversion" of the sys-
tem; it soon after became conceptualized as "transition" (GUADAR- RAMA-ZU-
GASTI; TRUJILLO-ORTEGA, 2019).
In more recent formulations, this understanding goes beyond the processes of redesigning agroecosystems whose duration is indefinite, becoming understood as a process of constant transformation. As stated by farmers and technical advisors, "it is a constant learning."

The perspective of conversion remains very present, especially in the organic production certification regulations with technical itineraries protocolarily fulfilled per the Normative Instructions - IN 17 (BRASIL, 2014) published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA).

However, the transition is a complex process that crosses local, territorial, and global scales, presenting various challenges. For Titonell (2019), these challenges include the construction of socio-organizational autonomy based on ecosystem services and promoting self-regulation processes of the socio-technical system. The author also highlights that overcoming the state of “niches,” as verified in isolated successful experiences, involves transforming “regimes” of hegemonic agri-food systems with socio-technical innovations that promote equity of access to quality food, providing answers to challenges faced by farmers, organizations, public and private institutions, and governments from local to global scales. The main challenges faced at the local and territorial scale include the lack of technical advice, the lack of scientific references on socio-technical processes, the isolation of farmers, the lack of group and collective process experience, organizational and socio-technical action, and articulation networks.

Expanding agroecological transition experiences and overcoming initial challenges are only possible with the construction of new values of socio-environmental coexistence and agroecological training processes horizontally, such as the perspective of the Peasant to Peasant (CaC) methodology by Val and Rosseti (2020). It makes the learning of practices directly effective, from realizing exchange activities that promote the dialogue of knowledge between farmers through practices to educational processes, especially non-formal ones, to build new knowledge and consolidate the sustainable management of the agroecosystems.

## Sertão do São Francisco Baiano and Pernambuco: social processes, development, and challenges to the agroecological transition in the Brazilian semi-arid region

Public and private investments supported by Brazilian state institutions intensified economic development actions in the semi-arid region, beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, thereby highlighting the construction of large dams for hydroelectric power generation along the São Francisco river.
The Sobradinho dam was inaugurated in the 1970s, completely transforming the social and economic dynamics of the region. With the Sobradinho lake, the Sertão do São Francisco focused its economic dynamics on implementing irrigated perimeters dedicated to fruit farming for export (SIQUEIRA, 2017).

The reality experienced in these perimeters contrasts with the riverine ways of life and the so-called “dryland” environments. Most family farming communities in the Brazilian semi-arid region are located in this environment, with restricted access to water for human consumption and production. In 2017, data from the agricultural and livestock census indicated that 79% of the population comprised family farmers (FORTINI, 2020). In rain-fed areas, agriculture and livelihoods depend on rainfall and are, therefore, more subject to climatic adversity. According to the 2017 agricultural census, in the Northeastern semi-arid region, 76.2% of families have access to water, 73.71% of which indicated that they have such access through cisterns, mostly built through the One Million Cisterns Program - P1MC (FORTINI, 2020). In the Brazilian semi-arid region, water availability is an aspect that conditions and limits various production processes. According to the 2017 agricultural census, 10.1% of rural establishments in the semi-arid North-East indicated that they had some form of irrigation.

In rain-fed areas and traditional communities, agroecological transition processes have been evidenced mainly in agro-extractive initiatives, such as umbu (BIANCHINI, 2018) and crops adapted to edaphic and climatic conditions marked by rainfall scarcity.

The irrigated perimeters are presented to society as “islands of development.” However, they are associated with numerous and serious problems of socio-environmental order.

These enterprises hide several unsustainable rural development processes, such as the indiscriminate use of pesticides, extremely harmful to human health and the environment in their surroundings (CARNEIRO et al., 2015). However, important initiatives also emerge, even if punctuated, such as those developed by CODEVASF in encouraging a group of irrigating farmers from Petrolina and Juazeiro to make the agroecological transition (AMARIZ, 2020). This CODEVASF initiative led to the articulation of different profiles of farmers practicing organic agriculture at different transition levels, culminated in the constitution of APROVASF, of which the group from the Mandacaru settlement has been part since its constitution. According to Germino et al. (2017), in 2016, APROVASF had 25 families from agrarian reform settlements as members, 19 irrigators from irrigated perimeters, and 12 peri-urban farmers. They are members of APROVASF, mostly from Petrolina and Juazeiro, producing a diversity of vegetables and fruits mostly sold in local markets.
Methodological process in the
analysis of the experience

Location of the settlement and agro-environmental
caracterization

The Mandacaru settlement is in the rural area of the municipality of Petrolina, semi-arid region of Pernambuco (S 09º16'18" - W 040º35'54"), on the margins of the BR 407 highway in a dryland area marginal to the PINC. The settlement is approximately 18 km from the urban center of Petrolina, with a total area of 482 ha, in which 70 families were settled and make up the Associação dos Agricultores(as) Familiares do Assentamento Mandacaru (AAFAM). The municipality of Petrolina and the region has a BSh (Semi-arid) climate, as per the Köppen classification. The characteristic vegetation is caatinga, consisting basically of xerophytic species.

Throughout occupying the settlement, the families implemented social infrastructure (e.g., houses, plots, roads, and environmental preservation) and organized agroecosystems currently at different levels of agroecological transition or in conventional exploitation (Figure 1).

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. Agroecosystems map of the Mandacaru settlement, Petrolina, PE. Source: Authors’ file</figcaption></figure>
Methodological Course of the Research

The entire evaluation process of the agroecological transition was based on action research, defined by Thiollent (2002) as research with intervention such that researchers and participants are directly involved. This study incorporates the perspective of action and participatory research developed throughout the interventions conducted with the settlement families. It initially focused on the actions of the group involved in the activities of the community organic garden and, later, extended to different initiatives of agroecological transition. The involvement in participatory research actions allowed for participant observation and evaluation of socio-environmental processes by farmers and researchers (HOCDÉ, 1999).

The analysis also included exchange activities and guided visits of various
groups of farmers and students of different educational levels to the agroecolog-
ical transition experiences and initiatives underway in the settlement. In these
activities, guided by the dialogue of knowledge (LEFF, 2009), planning interac-
tions always prioritized the protagonism of the settlement's farmers in conduct-
ing demonstrations, reports, and expositions of practices and strategies in their
historicity and particularities as families become involved and expand organic
production activities.

Steps employed by the research

*   **Successive approximation with the garden group and the community** - Through the interventions proposed throughout the teaching, research, and extension actions, in the period between 2013 and 2019, various actions were developed by the Sertão Agroecológico and socio-technical networks with which the social actors and institutions integrated and interacted. Some of these actions include (i) visits to the settlement's socio-productive spaces and agroecosystems; (ii) individual conversations and collective conversation circles, meetings, and discussions; (iii) identifying community organizations and socio-productive management processes; (iv) mapping sociocultural dynamics and articulations; (v) planning courses and thematic workshops pertinent to agroecological practices and exchanges; (vi) reports of meetings, surveys of real research demands, semi-structured interviews, and participatory research actions in development with families of the settlement; (vii) holding practical classes led by the farmers, with undergraduate and post-graduate classes of UNIVASF.

- **Planning and Development of Actions** – It is conducted with the fami-
lies directly involved in different agroecological transition initiatives in the
settlement, in addition to groups of UNIVASF students, other agroecological
farmer groups, and partners in the context of socio-technical networks, and
territorial articulations for promoting agroecology.

* **Consultation of records of activities and report of the developed and systematized actions** - The records on various actions developed throughout the intervention actions of this action research were consulted to subsidize the planning of ongoing actions and enable the systematization of records and information produced.

* **Systematization, triangulation, and analysis of the data** - This step concerned the historical process of the constitution of agroecosystems in transition, collective action, processes, and socio-technical articulations in which the settlement is inserted.

The last stage of the research allowed for evaluating data quantitatively and qualitatively by systematizing and subsequently triangulating the information (TRIVIÑOS, 1987).

## Reconstituting the transition experience in the settlement

The occupation of the farm area by the families occurred in 1999, and the regularization of possession by INCRA occurred in 2001, officially creating the Mandacaru settlement, as termed by the 70 families of settled sertanejos. Most of these families lived in the peripheral neighborhoods of Petrolina and Juazeiro and originated in the local rural exodus from the Brazilian semi-arid region, attracted by the possibility of finding work in the irrigated areas of the Sertão do São Francisco in Bahia and Pernambuco.

In the **first phase (1999-2003)**, which preceded the settlement, the accounts of life in the camp reveal challenges associated with the absence of basic infrastructure, such as decent housing, water, sewage, and electricity. It was two and a half years of lacking protection and uncertainty. However, in 2001, with the decree of expropriation of the area by INCRA, the old farm was declared for agrarian reform and, in 2003, the demarcation of the lots and parceling out of the land was conducted, defining the areas for rain-fed cultivation, irrigated cultivation, and communal areas. The construction of houses also began in 2003, but the solution to the problems of these families remained far away. Without income and resources for planting and food maintenance, the settlers were forced to look for work outside their locus in the surrounding irrigated farms as hired
labor since the opportunities were seasonal and without any labor guarantees.
The following statements are representative of this reality.

In the beginning, it was very difficult to maintain the families;
[some] people [...] donated food, and we said that we would still
have [much] production to take to the fair. So when we arrived at
the fair with the product of our first large production, the people
who donated food were surprised. (Female farmer 1, President of
the Association of the Mandacaru Settlement 05/06/2013)

There is a dam that was full of water at the time we occupied the
settlement, so we prepared a collective area for cultivation; we pro-
duced a lot and took it to the city to sell. (Farmer 2, member of the
community organic garden, 05/06/2013)

With the beginning of implementing social infrastructure in the Mandacaru
settlement, from 2003 onwards, crops were grown in a 35-ha area, identified as
the “irrigated collective area” (Figure 2) for irrigated production in the settle-
ment. Each settled family was given a 0.50 ha portion of this area that became
cultivated.

In the second phase (2003/2004-2008), settlers identify their vocations and group themselves by affinities. Until this period, even with the initial agroecosystems, many farmers still worked on the farms to earn income and support their families. During this period, the families had the support and partnership of UNIVASF teachers who, in 2005, conducted a series of interventions and university extension actions, sowing socio-productive ideas and proposals to overcome poverty and food security, in addition to generating employment and income in the settlement.

With the establishment of the community housing nucleus (from 2003/2004)
and the definition of rain-fed areas and areas of small irrigated plots in the then
collective area (0.5 ha/family), the families started to implement production pro-
posals in the different areas of the settlement, creating productive nuclei. The
initial production proposals involved occupying the collective irrigated area with
production systems that reproduced the logic of conventional production sys-
tems experienced on farms producing fruit for export (intensive use of pesticides
and chemical fertilizers).

However, per reports from the settlers, the high financial cost and depen-
dence on these inputs, associated with cases of poisoning of people in the settle-
ment, given direct exposure to pesticides in irrigated fruit farms, induced families
to establish safer, more autonomous, and healthier production processes. Thus,
given the levels of transition as a reference, a small group of families from the
settlement proposed to experience the agroecological transition by initially exper-
imenting with the substitution of inputs as indicated in level 2 (GLIESSMAN,
2015). Reports highlight the concern with health and the challenges perceived
regarding the alternative path to the use of pesticides in the cropping systems
under implementation:

Our health improved a lot when we left the farms. In the beginning, I did not believe that without poison, we would be able to produce anything because even using poison was already difficult; imagine without it. (Farmer 2, member of the community organic garden, 05/06/2013)

Using an eminent and committed socio-technical network comprising
organizations and groups that support family farming, such as the Rural Work-
ers Union (STR) of Petrolina and researchers from UNIVASF, partners, such as
PRORURAL (Pernambuco Secretary of Agriculture), and CODEVASF techni-
cians, the settlement managed to establish an organic garden in the community
area of the settlement's housing nucleus between 2008 and 2009. Meanwhile,
community leaders needed to seek other partners, such as SEBRAE and SENAR,
which provided courses and initial training in organic production practices. In
the articulation to make this action feasible, leaders of the settlement managed to
involve the group interested in implementing the garden (still in formation) in
project proposals prepared by PRORURAL called "Organic Gardens and Shed,"
which enabled the initial infrastructure of the garden for establishing productive
processes. From 2010, with the technical support of CODEVASF and, subse-
quently, financial support from SEBRAE, the community organic garden began
to be audited and certified by the Cháo Vivo Certification Body, becoming part
of the Organic Group of the Valley, which later became APROVASF in 2014.

Families reported that they began to work to promote experimentation and
direct observation of the dynamics of the settlement's agroecosystems and vegeta-
ble garden and the effects of the practices and management techniques adopted
in the latter. Thus, the settlers began to identify the best irrigation techniques and
systems to promote efficient water use in the settlement's irrigated productive
processes. They also learned the practices of fertilizing the beds, alternative pest
and weed control, and selecting varieties more adapted to the agroecosystems.
The families report that the agroecological management of the agroecosystems
involves constant observation and analysis of the practices adopted in the pro-
duction system, reinforcing the perception that agroecology and transition are
constant learning processes.
Of the group of 33 families who started the productive activities of the veg-
etable garden, only 16 remained until 2015 and today. The reasons for the initial
reduction, as per members who remained in the group, are diverse: the inade-
quacy to work with agroecological production and identification with other pro-
ductive activities (goats, fruit farming, handicrafts, candy production, and oth-
ers), developed within and outside the settlement; the impossibility of reconciling
with other activities, such as public service and paid work on neighboring farms
and other spaces; challenges in group and community work for some members;
and health problems. Regarding the health issue, a significant number of the
members of the vegetable garden and settlement are in their old age, and the work
demands much physical effort.

In the whole experience of the community organic garden, collective action prevailed, which, according to Olson (1999), cannot be based on individualism. Collectivity must prevail, emphasizing that the action of a set of individuals with common interests does not always result in collective action. With the consolidation of the group involved in organic production at the Mandacaru settlement, the vegetable garden has become a learning unit and an exchange of agroecological experiences for families from the settlement and groups from Petrolina and the region with which the settlement interacts. These processes of knowledge exchange occur within the social relationships and socialization spaces in the settlement, such as association meetings, work and family conviviality, established inside and outside the settlement in the set of networks of relationships in the social networks of exchange and reciprocity (SABORIN et al., 2018). For the families of the Mandacaru settlement, some spaces show the constitution of socio-technical networks that enable the exchange of knowledge and values, in addition to material exchanges, through marketing at the organic fairs organized by APROVASF. The association's collective has enabled closer ties with different social actors and market agents at different levels, enabling relationships of exchange and commercialization of organic products at the local and territorial levels. Moreover, the settlement has been involved in collective public policy processes such as the Food Acquisition Program (PAA) and the National School Meals Program (PNAE), the latter being in conjunction with four other settlements in its surroundings.

In 2015, the organic garden produced more than 20 varieties of vegetables,
including herbs, tubers, fruits, and medicinal and dietary plants.

Given the initial water scarcity limitation, the organic production experi-
ment was expanded to the backyards (Figure 1) of the families involved in the
organic community garden experiment. The use of land in backyards enabled the
expansion of the productive potential of families using water available to families.
Concomitantly with the organic garden initiative and the expansion of back-
yard cultivation, some families already work in the collective irrigated area on
0.5 ha family plots for agroecological management, using sustainable fertilization
practices to manage spontaneous plants, pests, and diseases. However, the area
configuration in very small plots has an exploitation perspective, predominantly
guided by conventional production practices. This situation (associated with the
proximity of the irrigated area to fruit-growing farms with intense use of pesti-
cides) made it challenging to obtain organic certification of the products from
these plots.

The prices of organic products set by the farming families of the settlement and the other APROVASF members are compatible with the prices of conventional products or even cheaper. It is observed for direct purchases by families in the settlement and surrounding communities and commercialization and delivery points in Petrolina and Juazeiro. The families from the settlement involved in the various agroecological transition initiatives evaluate a big improvement in their quality of life, income, and access to quality food, referring to the experience of the community organic garden:

After [...] working in the garden, our financial conditions have
improved a lot because we stopped working for others on farms
where we were in contact with pesticides all the time. [Moreover,]
we are earning more than before. (Female farmer 3, community
leader and President of APROVASF, interview notes- July 2014).

In 2015, seeking to expand the areas of organic production, part of the fam-
ilies involved in the garden group and other people interested in organic fruit
production implemented 0.5 ha of organic grapes in the settlement (Figure 1)
with support from Petrolina. In this area, collective management with respect for
individualities was implemented in the management and handling of the success-
ful grape crop. Thus, the area was divided into spaces and activities to manage the
practices and production results individually.

However, in this 0.5-ha area, several activities are managed collectively and
must be worked on within the group, such as irrigation management, pruning
periods, and organic input acquisition.

Thus, the settlement became the first supplier of organic grapes to the two
organic produce fairs of Petrolina and Juazeiro, local supermarkets, and even-
tually other markets outside these municipalities. This initiative also promoted
the self-esteem of settled families. Other families from the settlement began to
visualize this agricultural practice to improve their living conditions without
wage labor on the irrigated fruit farms in the region. In the settlement itself,
experiences of organic production and family farming have emerged, with possibilities for building autonomy and further development. The settlement has been much sought after to share its organizational experience, knowledge, and social capital in agroecological transition and organic production in the community and family farming context. The agroecological transition initiatives of the settlement have received many visits and exchanges, encouraging and supporting several other agroecological transition initiatives in the territory, thus constituting a space for teaching, research, and development institutions operating in the territories of the Sertão do São Francisco in Pernambuco and Bahia and training farmers, technicians, and socio-technical advisory organizations.

The role of the social organization and settlement leaders in promoting effectively participatory collective action was fundamental to the success of initiatives in the vegetable garden, grape production, expansion of irrigated areas, and processing and commercialization of organic produce in different local circuits. Thus, collective action is being strengthened, with legitimacy inside and outside the settlement. Thus, since its implementation, the settlement association has filed numerous requests with CODEVASF to release water from the perimeter for irrigation the settlement's dryland areas, recognizing the area as irrigable. In 2019, after political articulation and legal action, the right to water from the irrigated perimeter to meet all dryland plots of 4 ha was won by each of the 70 families. Currently (early 2021), these plots implement irrigated areas fully. Of the 70 families in the settlement, approximately 40 are in the implementation process, 12 of them aiming for organic irrigated production, with diverse, productive proposals. Among them, diversification in foodstuffs produced throughout the implementation of different agro- and ecosystems stands out, as does the implementation of orchards for organic fruit production.

## Final considerations

The experience of the collective struggle for Agrarian Reform, the challenges of the initial years in the encampment and settlement, and the successful experience with the organic garden implementation allowed for various collective action processes that led to the construction of a successful practice and rich social capital. The management of the collective and individual spaces and activities in the garden and other socio-productive activities stem from an entire experience of collaboration and search for consensus in the projects accredited by the families, who have strongly experienced community exchange as an empowerment strategy, in addition to using the socio-technical networks within the context of the Mandacaru settlement.
Beyond the first three levels of agroecological transition, the settlement experience has promoted proximity and reciprocity between producers and consumers of products at the local and territorial levels. The practice of organic agriculture guided by the principles of Agroecology at the Mandacaru settlement has enhanced the efficient use of water and other natural resources via the internal efficiency of the agroecosystems under construction at the settlement.

The settlement experience demonstrates that group actions strengthen the collective interests in the transition process. Moreover, the transition process is strengthened by the insertion of the Mandacaru settlement in socio-technical networks, such as the one organized around the extension actions of UNIVASF, APROVASF, and the settlement, which involved institutions, groups of farmers, entrepreneurs, and consumers. Therefore, this trajectory of struggle, resistance, learning, and achievements problematizes a rich and dynamic process of internal organization and cohesion of the settlement families to resist the limitations and challenges of resource scarcity and productive infrastructure conquered throughout the trajectory of settlement families. These transition processes have been based on the actions of socio-technical networks of learning and collaboration, including the protagonism of the farming families, policies to support family farming, public education, research, extension and development institutions, civil society organizations, and social movements.

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# Fartura tem de montão<fnref n="1" />: Public policies and socio-ecological resilience in traditional communities of pastureland in the Sertão do São Francisco, Bahia

Denis Monteiro, Luciano Silveira, Paulo Petersen

## Introduction

Having consolidated in the political-institutional environment and the world of civil organizations as the “paradigm of living with the semi-arid” (SILVA, 2008), agroecology was pioneered as a theoretical and methodological basis for rural and agricultural development in the Caatinga Biome in the 1980s through the action of Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in partnership with grassroots communities, especially peasant organizations. After more than two decades of public policies and programs designed and executed with the effective participation of civil society organizations, the Brazilian semi-arid region is currently configured as a rich “laboratory” for “Political Agroecology” (GONZALEZ DE MOLINA et al., 2020), a field dedicated to the study of institutions and policies aimed at promoting the socio-ecological sustainability of agri-food systems.

Given the consensus in the international community on the important role played by modern agri-food systems as a driving force for climate change and other biophysical transformations on the planet, such as accelerated desertification, loss of biodiversity, and depletion and degradation of water bodies, debates have multiplied in sub-national, national, and international public arenas on the need to renew the focus of policies and programs for agriculture and food. These discussions have intensified with the United Nations (UN) officialization of the

<footnote n="1">¹ “Fartura tem de montão” is an expression used in the very popular song “Último pau de arara”. The expression literally means “there is too much abundance.” Luiz Gonzaga, its author, seeks to contrast the generalized view of the Brazilian semiarid as a place of precariousness condemned to poverty.</footnote>
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an integrative political agenda of goals related to social, economic, environmental, cultural and institutional dimensions of development. As part of these multilateral debates, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) convened an International Symposium on Agroecology in 2018 to discuss experiences of public policies aimed at increasing the scale of agroecology as a strategy for achieving the SDGs.

This chapter contributes to these debates via the description and analysis of rural development processes driven by the convergent action between the State and civil society organizations in the territory of Sertão do São Francisco, Bahia. It employs the trajectory of 12 agroecosystems linked to networks of agroecological innovation structured in the territory as an empirical reference to highlight the multidimensional effects generated by the socio-technical transformations promoted. It also highlights the centrality of the territorial approach as a reference for the design and implementation of public policies and programs, breaking with the sectoral perspectives that remain dominant in the intervention of the State. From this perspective, it demonstrates how and under what institutional and political conditions the agroecological approach makes it possible to reconcile in the dynamics of rural and agricultural development the challenge of adapting to climate change with other SDGs, in particular the structural overcoming of poverty, the promotion of food and nutritional security, and the conservation of biodiversity and soils.

## Recognize to redistribute

The period of re-democratization in Brazil saw the emergence in the national public arena of many debates and social forces repressed during the military dictatorship. The Federal Constitution of 1988 accepted part of the demands for civil rights previously denied to large contingents of the population, including rural workers. The resulting victories were primarily the result of recognizing the role of social subjects historically marginalized from the actions of the Brazilian state.

The social movements in the countryside denounced the precarious conditions of social reproduction of the then called “small producers,” demanding State intervention in constructing specific public policies for this public, particularly agrarian reform and subsidized rural credit. According to Grisa and Schneider (2015), the confluence between social pressure and academic contributions based on the experience of developed countries created favorable conditions for family farming to also be affirmed in Brazil as the bearer of positive specificities for food production and job demand, boosting rural economies.
Despite this important recognition, most public policy instruments created since the 1990s have remained guided by the foundations of agricultural modernization, disregarding the diversity of forms of work organization and the multiple identities and projects for the social reproduction of rural and forest peoples. The political and ideological hegemony of agribusiness groups ended up prevailing in allocating the largest portion of public resources redistributed to agriculture and rural areas. It meant subordination to agribusiness chains and the financial system for large portions of family farming.

Grisa and Schneider (2015) identify the first generation of policies for fam-
ily farming as those oriented by the agricultural and agrarian referential, imple-
mented from the 1990s onwards, with emphasis on the National Program for the
Strengthening of Family Farming (PRONAF), and the implementation of rural
settlements in response to the pressure exerted by land occupations organized by
social movements.

It is also worth highlighting the increasing social security coverage for rural
workers, including rural wage earners and family farmers (as of 1988), the right
to maternity wages for female family farmers (as of 1994), and income guarantee
policies, such as the “Bolsa Família Program.” Identified as policies guided by the
social and welfare referential, these initiatives were boosted, either in the volume
of redistributed resources or the number of beneficiaries, from 2003 onwards,
with the Lula and Dilma governments. According to the authors,

“in the last two decades, the most impoverished rural areas of Brazil have experienced undeniable improvements in their conventional development indicators (e.g., income increase) that, perhaps, would not have been achieved only through the agricultural and agrarian actions analyzed in the first generation of policies” (GRISA; SCHNEIDER, 2015, p. 36, translated from Portuguese).

The creation of the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security (CONSEA) and the Zero Hunger Program at the beginning of the Lula government in 2003 are important milestones in the recent history of public policies for family farming. They meant the creation of institutional spaces for civil society actors identified with agroecology and mobilizations against hunger and poverty to influence the design of State actions. Women’s movements also began to occupy these and other institutional spaces, denouncing the enormous challenges faced by rural women in accessing public policies and demanding the construction of adequate instruments.

The creation of spaces for the co-management of public policies represented the recognition of the role of civil society organizations in the formulation and execution of public policies. One of the main examples of policies formulated based on this recognition were those guided by the notion of “Living with the
Semi-Arid” (vs. “Fight Against Drought”) inspired by the actions of civil society organizations (Catholic parishes, trade unions, and NGOs) with resources from international cooperation.

These actions multiplied with public resources in the first years of the 2000s, becoming de facto comprehensive programs after the re-creation of CONSEA in 2003. The internationally awarded Training and Mobilization Program for Living with the Semi-Arid—One Million Rural Cisterns (P1MC)—made it possible to build slab cisterns to store water captured from the roofs of houses, and the One Land and Two Waters Program (P1+2) focused on the construction of water storage infrastructure for food production (see www.asabrasil.org.br/).

Many innovations in public policies stem from recognizing the multifunctionality of family farming, breaking away from the economic productivist bias that predominated in the first generation of policies. One of the highlights in this regard is the potential of family farming as a producer of healthy and diversified food for sale in local markets or to be purchased through government purchasing policies. This recognition led to the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), which began in 2003, and the law of 2009 that allocates a minimum of 30% of federal funds from the National School Meals Program (PNAE) to direct purchases from family farmers. Other examples are the programs to support the conservation and use of native seeds and value sociobiodiversity products, including initiatives such as the Policy to Guarantee Minimum Prices for Sociobiodiversity Products (PGPM Bio), created in 2008, and the Semi-Arid Seeds Program.

The institution of the National Policy on Agroecology and Organic Production (PNAPO) in 2012 was a key fact recognizing agroecology as an alternative approach to agricultural and food policies. In the context of the National Commission on Agroecology and Organic Production (CNAPO), a body with parity participation between the State and civil society, public policy instruments, consistent with the agroecological perspective, were created or strengthened. We highlight the Ecoforte Program to Support Territorial Networks of Agroecology, Extractivism and Organic Production as a relevant institutional innovation, financed with resources from the Banco do Brasil Foundation (FBB), the Social Fund of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) and the Amazon Fund (SCHMITT et al., 2020).

## Effects of public policies from an agroecological perspective

One of the biggest challenges posed to the necessary reorientation of the approaches of rural and agricultural development policies to achieve the SDGs
refers to overcoming the theoretical and conceptual frameworks and metrics used in planning and evaluating the effects of public intervention. Based on the foundations of neoclassical economics and the precepts of technological diffusionism, the dominant scientific and political-institutional guidelines are characterized by universalizing and homogenizing concepts to describe, categorize, and plan development trajectories focused on achieving economic goals in the short to medium term. Thus, they make invisible or delegitimize the multiple and heterogeneous social experiences that deviate from officially projected trajectories. It is, therefore, a “production of institutionalized ignorance” (PLOEG, 2003) such that it makes invisible “deviations of route” that potentially inspire virtuous development dynamics capable of reconciling several dimensions and goals enshrined in the SDGs.

This imposition of reductionist lenses to interpret agricultural and agrarian realities generate what Boaventura Sousa Santos (2002) has called the “waste of experience.” In this case, the waste of creative initiatives of family farmers and their organizations characterized by valorizing territorial resources (material or immaterial) in reproducing their means and ways of life.

As an approach to overcoming the paradigm of agricultural modernization (PETERSEN, 2013), agroecology is distinguished from the latter by the adoption of socio-technical innovation perspectives based on dialogue between scientific and popular knowledge to identify and develop the ecological and socio-cultural potentials of the territories to promote fair and sustainable patterns of social and economic organization of agrifood systems.

By employing an endogenous development orientation, the trajectories of agroecological innovation increase the productive efficiency of agroecosystems without creating structural dependence on the financial system and external markets for inputs and services, generally controlled by corporate agribusiness groups.

Two ideas are central to the endogeneity of development: local resources and local control. In this sense, rural development oriented by the agroecological paradigm can be defined as that in which the economy of agroecosystems and food systems is anchored predominantly in the valorization of local resources, organized by local patterns of combining these resources, and continuously strengthened by the local reinvestment of locally produced wealth.

Accordingly, the investment of external resources, such as those provided by public policies, should progressively expand and improve the base of local resources self-controlled by farming families and communities. From this perspective, it contrasts head-on with the conventional logic of public investment, essentially guided by short-term production bias. Beyond increasing dependence on external resources, this conventional orientation of public action makes
obsolete and compromises the integrity of territorial resources essential for the
local and global SDG implementation.

The need to broaden the perspectives for assessing the multidimensional and multiscale effects of rural development trajectories guided by the agroecological approach has motivated different analytical frameworks over the last decades. Regarding the initiative of a working group composed by FAO after the International Symposium on Agroecology (2018), a review of these methods was conducted to synthesize a proposal to be tested in different world regions in search of new analytical references officially recognized by UN countries. Given such effort, the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) method (MOTTET et al., 2020) was proposed and is being tested and adjusted. One of the analytical references considered in the TAPE development was the “Lume method: economic-ecological analysis of agroecosystems” proposed by AS-PTA (PETERSEN et al., 2017; 2020). As the name implies, its main objective is to shed light on economic-ecological relations essential to the socio-technical reproduction strategies of family farming but actively invisible in the analytical frameworks derived from the modernization paradigm.

The analysis of the effects of public policies on the economic-ecological performance of the 12 agroecosystems was conducted based on the theoretical and methodological references proposed in the Lume method.

Methodological procedures

This study was conducted in 12 agroecosystems managed by farming families. The families were integrated into socio-technical innovation networks stimulated by the Pro-Semiárido Project (PSA) in rural communities in seven municipalities of the Sertão do São Francisco Territory: four in Juazeiro, two in Sento Sé and Remanso and one each in Sobradinho, Casa Nova, Campo Alegre de Lourdes, and Uauá.

The 12 families accessed various public policies. The selection met the cri-
terion of active participation of at least one person from the family in PSA activ-
ities. Between April 2019 and February 2020, semi-structured interviews with
the families were conducted by technical advisors from the Regional Institute for
Appropriate Smallholder Agriculture (IRPAA); the Socio-Environmental Assis-
tance Service in the Countryside and the City (SAJUC); the Canudos, Uauá, and
Curaçá Family Farming Cooperative (COOPERCUC); and the Advisory Service
to Rural Popular Organizations (SASOP); advisory organizations responsible for
PSA implementation in the communities. Technicians from the Regional Devel-
opment and Action Company (CAR), the public agency linked to the government
of Bahia; AS-PTA; and other NGOs operating in the semi-arid region of Bahia
were also involved in the studies.

The following methodological tools were used to collect and record informa-
tion in the field:

a) Transect (walks) through the establishments to identify the production subsystems and the agrarian capital;

b) Participatory mapping of agroecosystem;

c) Explanatory models to represent the trajectories of agroecosystems over time (timelines);

d) Models to identify the origins of inputs consumed and destinations of pro-
ducts generated in the agroecosystems (flow diagrams of products and inp-
uts);

e) spreadsheet for recording quantitative information on the agroecosystem economy in the 2018 annual cycle (hours worked, quantities produced, production destinations, income generated, production costs with inputs and payment for services, own production of inputs, inputs received through reciprocity, services received through reciprocity). The spreadsheet also records hours worked and income earned through non-agricultural activities (pluriactivity) and income earned through social policies. Hours dedicated to domestic and care work and social participation were also recorded.

For each agroecosystem, the following sustainability attributes were ana-
lyzed: autonomy; responsiveness; social integration; gender equity and women's
empowerment; youth empowerment. Each attribute was evaluated based on
qualitative judgments of a set of parameters, taking as reference changes recorded
in the timelines. Each parameter was evaluated regarding the configuration of the
agroecosystem at two moments in its trajectory (in 2019 and another reference
year), following the following grades: very low, low, medium, high, and very
high. Justifications for the scores were recorded in a table. Radar-type graphs were
composed from the scores, generating a visual representation of the qualitative
changes identified between the two periods analyzed. Synthetic indices (from
zero to one) were produced to represent the relative level of the attribute at differ-
ent moments in the agroecosystem trajectory.

The reference years adopted correspond to the years in which families
began to participate in innovation dynamics, especially those driven by PSA.
In eight agroecosystems, the reference year was 2015. Each of the other four
agroecosystems was analyzed based on the following reference years: 2013, 2010, 2009, and 2006.

The quantitative data collected in the field were introduced into the Lume *online* platform and generated indicators, graphs, and indices on the economy of the agroecosystems. Thus, to measure the PSA effects on the economy of the agroecosystems, a comparative exercise was conducted between the indicators generated from the actual data collected in the interviews and those generated from the simulation of data corresponding to the levels of production obtained if the changes provided by the socio-technical innovations incorporated since the family's participation in the program had not occurred.

## A changing economic and socio-ecological reality

The Sertão do São Francisco territory is located in the extreme north of Bahia under the domain of the Caatinga Biome. It is one of the 27 identity territories established by the State Law that created the Territorial Development Policy of the State of Bahia. With an area of 61,609.7 km², corresponding to 11% of the state (Figure 1), the territory comprises 10 municipalities: Campo Alegre de Lourdes, Remanso, Casa Nova, Sento Sé, Pilão Arcado, Sobradinho, Juazeiro, Curaçá, Uauá, and Canudos. IBGE estimated a population of 530,215 inhabitants in 2018, 64% in urban areas and 36% in rural areas.

The average HDI of the 10 municipalities advanced between 1991 and 2010 from 0.291 to 0.585. The average rainfall is between 400 and 700 mm, with uncertain and irregular rainfall in time and space, concentrated between October and March. However, the variations between years are large, with frequent consecutive years of severe drought, as occurred between 1979 and 1983 and 2012 and 2018.

The 2017 Agricultural and Livestock Census reveals the existence of 33,442 family farming establishments, which corresponds to 80% of the total number of agricultural establishments in the territory. The census also showed that 64% of the establishments have cisterns for rainwater storage.

Two contrasting patterns of socio-technical organization of agriculture are identified in the territorial landscape. Irrigated agriculture with intensive use of agrochemicals are generally integrated into agribusiness chains to export or supply large urban centers: fruit farming (e.g., mango, grape, and guava) on large farms and the cultivation of tomato, onion, watermelon, and melon in small plots in rural settlements or communities near the São Francisco River or on the banks of the Sobradinho Lake.
<figure><img src="image_24.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. The 10 municipalities of the Territory Sertão do São Francisco and their location in northern Bahia.</figcaption></figure>

Source: Schmitt et al. (2020)

Moreover, rain-fed agriculture practiced by peasants is often organized in communities known locally as “fundo de pasto” (common-use pastureland). In these community arrangements, goat, sheep, and cattle raising predominate in communal grazing areas and spaces of exclusive appropriation by the family units; there are fields of cassava, corn, and beans; beekeeping; chicken raising; and vegetable and fruit tree cultivation around the house.

## Traditional communities of pastureland

The system of animal husbandry in common-use pastureland is a traditional form of work organization that enables the appropriation of vast extensions of land through mechanisms of mutual aid and collective management of the areas of caatinga destined for animal grazing. In this case, access to land is regulated by customary norms, and labor is mobilized through reciprocity mechanisms. It means that land and labor are not mobilized for the productive process as commodities. They are “commons” regulated according to tacit agreements established in the communities. Struggles for official recognition of this economy associated with traditional forms of land appropriation are part of the history of peasant movements in the region (SABOURIN et al., 1999; MORIMURA, 2015; GERMANI; OLIVEIRA, 2020).
Public policies and programs for
family farming in the territory

The four key elements of rural development processes identified by Schnei-
der (2004) are present in the territory's public agenda: eradication of poverty,
empowerment of social actors and their political participation, territory as a ref-
erence unit, and environmental sustainability concerns.

A series of federal public policies, listed in the second section of this article, have strongly impacted the territory since the early 2000s. Several policies have been implemented in communities in partnership with NGOs active in the territory since the late 1980s. These organizations and others created subsequently worked in close partnership with grassroots organizations and were responsible for implementing federal policies such as the P1MC, the P1+2, and the National Policy for Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (ATER). This process created a strong social network dynamic oriented toward promoting technical and socio-organizational innovations for “living with the semi-arid,” emphasizing the empowerment of rural communities and the mediating role of advisory organizations.

With the institutional dismantling that began in 2016, the budgets of fed-
eral policies for rural development focused on family farming saw a significant
reduction. However, relevant public investments were continued in the territory
with the policies and programs of the state government of Bahia, such as the state
ATER policy. As of 2015, the state government established offices of the Territo-
rial Service for the Support of Family Farming (SETAF), part of the State Policy
for Territorial Development instituted the previous year.

The Pro Semi-Arid Project (PSA), the result of a loan agreement between the government of Bahia and the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), is among the public actions established. Coordinated by the Secretariat of Rural Development (SDR) through CAR, the project has been implemented since 2016 in partnership with NGOs. Its implementation is conducted through participatory planning and combines technical advisory activities, training, and financial resources to structure agroecosystems and communities. Among the investments directly supported by the project in the communities are economic beds for vegetable production, cisterns and water tanks, aviaries, beekeeping equipment, construction or renovation of goat and sheep pens, and the acquisition of forage machines.

The project also supports agro-industrialization and the commercialization of production. The PSA is applying R$ 300 million – U$ 55,3 million (up to August 2021), involving 70,000 families in 32 municipalities in five identity
territories of Bahia's semi-arid region: Sertão do São Francisco, Bacia do Jacuípe, Piemonte da Diamantina, Piemonte Norte do Itapicuru and Sisal.

As in the next section, the federal and state policies and programs have been crucial for socio-technical innovations to have unfolded at the level of family units and rural communities, with positive effects for the economy and food security of families and the territory.

## Capturing change: when redistribution boosts autonomous and resilient economies

"Here is a very dry region, but we are always living here, you know? Only that the means for us to survive are better than before." Gracinha Gomes de Almeida, farmer in the municipality of Remanso, Bahia

This section synthesizes the economic-ecological analysis of the 12 agroecosystems studied in the territory. Initially, we present the analysis of the economic effects generated by the integration of families into socio-technical innovation networks promoted or stimulated by public policies and programs, with emphasis on PSA. We then present and discuss the effects on the systemic attributes of agroecosystem sustainability.

### *Changes in economic performance*

Table 1 presents the 12 agroecosystems analyzed. Beyond identifying the municipality of location, it presents the composition of the Social Nucleus of Agroecosystem Management (SNAM) and the age of each member of the nucleus. It also presents indicators and information on the annual economic production of agroecosystems.
<table><caption>Table 1: Characterization of the analyzed agroecosystems - composition and economic data corresponding to the 2018 annual cycle (Agroecosystems 1 to 5: analyzed cycle February/2018 to January/2019; Agroecosystems 6 to 12: October/2018 to September/2019).</caption><thead><tr><th>Agroecosystem and municipality</th><th>Number of people and age members of SNAM (February 2020)</th><th>Size of the area (ha)</th><th>Agricultural income (reais)</th><th>MAI/AI (%)</th><th>Endogeneity index (AV/GI)</th><th>Monetary profitability</th><th>AI/ TI (%)</th><th>ISP /TI (%)</th><th>PI/TI (%)</th><th>Non-agricultural income sources</th><th>Main productions sold</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>AE 1 - Juazeiro</td><td>(3 persons) M: 40 and 8; W: 28</td><td>3 + CUP</td><td>37.732</td><td>87</td><td>0,75</td><td>1,82</td><td>62</td><td>3</td><td>35</td><td>School transport, social policies</td><td>Tomatoes, goat meat and sheep meat</td></tr><tr><td>AE 2 - Juazeiro</td><td>(6) M: 35, 19, 18, 13 W: 35 and 6</td><td>5 + CUP</td><td>9.128</td><td>6</td><td>0,79</td><td>0,79</td><td>38</td><td>11</td><td>51</td><td>Cleaning services, masonry, per diems, social policies</td><td>Goat meat and eggs</td></tr><tr><td>AE 3 - Juazeiro</td><td>(4) M: 58, 32 and 30 W: 54</td><td>97 + CUP</td><td>29.008</td><td>58</td><td>0,86</td><td>2,94</td><td>55</td><td>22</td><td>23</td><td>Mason, social policies</td><td>Poultry, meat of goats and sheep, eggs</td></tr><tr><td>AE 4 - Juazeiro</td><td>(4) M: 38 and 46 W: 39 and 80</td><td>18 + CUP</td><td>13.922</td><td>72</td><td>0,73</td><td>1,53</td><td>52</td><td>18</td><td>30</td><td>Sale of handicrafts, per diems, remittance of relatives, social policies</td><td>Eggs, coriander, palm and paprika</td></tr><tr><td>AE 5 - Sobradinho</td><td>(3) M: 18 W: 76 and 19</td><td>11,5</td><td>16.901</td><td>46</td><td>0,94</td><td>4,36</td><td>58</td><td>42</td><td>Zero</td><td>Retirement</td><td>Goats, vegetables and chickens</td></tr><tr><td>AE 6 - Casa Nova</td><td>(3) M: 63 W: 30 and 31</td><td>41 + CUP</td><td>9.131</td><td>32</td><td>0,88</td><td>1,88</td><td>25</td><td>36</td><td>39</td><td>Retirement, civil service, seamstress, lunch lady</td><td>Cattle, pigs and sheep</td></tr><tr><td>SA 7 - Sento Sé</td><td>(3) M: 70 W: 59 and 94</td><td>50 + CUP</td><td>22.240</td><td>65</td><td>0,81</td><td>2,33</td><td>40</td><td>47</td><td>13</td><td>Sale of bakery products, retirement, social policies</td><td>Lettuce, cabbage, umbu and mango pulp, cheese</td></tr><tr><td>SA 8 - Sento Sé</td><td>(4) M: 45, 15 and 10 W: 40</td><td>67 + CUP</td><td>6.656</td><td>30</td><td>0,93</td><td>2,17</td><td>31</td><td>14</td><td>55</td><td>Civil service, mechanical, social policies</td><td>Goats and cheese</td></tr><tr><td>SA 9 - Remanso</td><td>(4) M: 28 and 26 W: 72 and 52</td><td>58 + CUP</td><td>9.783</td><td>58</td><td>0,89</td><td>3,07</td><td>39</td><td>61</td><td>Zero</td><td>Retirement, social policies</td><td>Forage and silage seedlings</td></tr><tr><td>AE 10 - Remanso</td><td>(4) M: 58, 28 and 22 W: 31</td><td>30 + CUP</td><td>5.888</td><td>27</td><td>0,76</td><td>0,64</td><td>20</td><td>49</td><td>31</td><td>Mechanic services, mason, fence construction, retirement</td><td>Honey, goats, sheep and cattle</td></tr><tr><td>AE 11 - Uauá</td><td>(3) M: 69 and 35 W: 62</td><td>35 + CUP</td><td>48.460</td><td>55</td><td>0,93</td><td>5,12</td><td>68</td><td>32</td><td>Zero</td><td>Retirements</td><td>Umbu, yuca and coriander</td></tr><tr><td>SA 12 - Campo Alegre</td><td>(4) M: 45 W: 44, 23 and 21</td><td>82 + CUP</td><td>34.506</td><td>53</td><td>0,94</td><td>2,48</td><td>62</td><td>21</td><td>17</td><td>Diary, social policies</td><td>Cattle, honey, watermelon and corn</td></tr><tr><td>Average</td><td>3,75 (persons/AE)</td><td></td><td>20.280</td><td>49</td><td>0,85</td><td>2,38</td><td>46</td><td>30</td><td>24</td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

Legend - SNAM: Social Nucleus of Agroecosystem Management; CUP: Common-Use Pastureland; AI: Agricultural Income; MAI: Monetary Agricultural Income; AV: Added Value; TI: Total Income (agricultural income + income from social policies + income from pluriactivity); ISP: Income from social policies; PI: Pluriactivity income; GI: Gross Income (excluding non-farm income); M: men and boys; W: women and girls. Prepared by the authors.
<figure><img src="image_25.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2. Proportional contributions of agricultural income, pluriactivity, and social policies for farming families.</figcaption></figure>

Sertão do São Francisco Territory, Bahia.

The average agricultural income in the annual cycle analyzed was R$ 20.280 (U$ 3,738), representing 46% of the total income of the families. The lowest percentages were 25% and 31% and the highest, 68% and 62%. In half of the agroecosystems analyzed, agricultural income was higher than 50% of the total income. The average income from social policies corresponded to 30% of the total income and pluriactivity, 24% (Figure 2). The data reveals the recurring importance of pluriactivity for the total income of families, although with great variation between the cases. They converge with Wanderley and Favareto (2013); thus, pluriactivity does not necessarily mean abandoning agricultural activities. As became clear in the elaboration of the agroecosystem timeline, resources mobilized by pluriactivity reinforce the economic-ecological reproduction strategies of agriculture. Therefore, they are largely invested in the expansion of the self-controlled resource base (family assets), contributing directly to increasing the autonomy and resilience of the agroecosystems. Notably, part of this income from pluriactivity is from services provided in the rural communities, such as bricklaying, carpentry, and sewing. Hence, these jobs are invested in strengthening the working conditions of neighbors and the community.

The same applies to resources from retirement, pensions, and other social policies. As noted below, the agroecosystems produce a significant proportion of the food consumed by families, freeing up pension resources for investment in expanding family assets. From this perspective, these resources redistributed by the State as a vested social right induce rural development dynamics, particularly through the strengthening of family farming.
This diversity of incomes is essential in strengthening the agroecosystem resilience by ensuring the continuity of income in periods of prolonged droughts, a condition that worsens with global climate change. This stabilization of income levels reduces the risks of subsystem deactivation or migration in search of work, as was prevalent in the 20th century. However, diversity increases the investment capacities of households when the rains return to normal after periods of drought. Figure 3 shows the composition of gross product (average of the 12 agroecosystems) in the analyzed annual agricultural cycle (2018).

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3. Composition of Gross Product (average of the 12 agroecosystems) in the 2018 annual cycle. Territory of Sertão do São Francisco, Bahia.</figcaption></figure>

The average gross non-monetary agricultural income corresponded (in 2018) to the amounts produced for self-consumption and donated by the families (R$8,651.06, 78% for self-consumption and 22% for donations). This data shows the contribution of diversified production in agroecosystems to the food security of families and rural communities. Some donations go to children living in urban areas or even distant cities. Though unquantified, food donations from relatives and friends reinforce food security levels and strengthen economies of reciprocity in the territory.

Part of the production was not consumed or marketed in the annual cycle analyzed, becoming stocks of resources to be realized as income in subsequent production cycles. On average, these stocks amount to R$ 5,531.13 and mainly comprise goat and sheep meat and, in some cases, cattle. This stockpiled resource produced in 2018 results from increased biodiversity in agroecosystems, community management of pasture land, increased water storage capacity, and good rainy seasons in previous years. These saved resources confer economic and productive stability to the subsequent production cycle. The average production
costs were R$ 5.018,80, of which 26% were used to pay third-party services, and the rest, purchase inputs. The average annual expenditure of the 12 families for third-party services was equivalent to 1.3 minimum wages, representing a significant contribution to the territory's economy, given that most of this expenditure is allocated to the remuneration of local workers.

The average added value of the 12 agroecosystems was R$21,580.35. Discounting the payment to third parties yields an average agricultural income of R$ 20,279.59, representing 20.3 minimum wages per family nucleus in the study period. The average monetary agricultural income was R$ 11,628.53 (11.7 minimum wages).

## Effects of the Pro-Semiárido Project

When sizing the variation between the real economy of agroecosystems with the simulated economy by subtracting the economic-ecological effects generated by innovations incorporated from the incidence of PSA, the study identified that the program contributed to the average increase of 17.7% in the gross product (from R$26.050.36 to R$ 30,649.52), 22.7% in agricultural income (R$ 16,529.74 to R$ 20,279.59), and 33.9% in monetary agricultural income (R$ 8,681.93 to R$ 11,628.53).

The simulation also indicates the significant role of innovations to increase production for self-consumption and donations (average variation of 10.2%). There was also a 24.1% increase in income generated from produce sales, an increase made possible by proximity markets, such as door-to-door sales (for families and local businesses), fairs in the municipalities, the vigorous local market for goats and sheep, and the sale of processed fruit pulp, especially umbú (*Spondias tuberosa*). These increases in agricultural monetary and non-monetary income show that the significant contribution of PSA to the increase in families' monetary income did not happen at the expense of food production for self-consumption and donations. In addition to the quantity, the diversity of self-consumed food also increased. This aspect reveals the importance of public policies and programs recognizing and valuing the productive diversity of family farming and its economic strategies.

By adopting a systemic approach to guide actions, the program is a clear counterpoint to the dominant logic of public investment, generally focused on a few production chains that often induce families to increase their dependence on input and food markets. Although average increases in production costs of around 6% were identified, the average endogeneity index (value-added/gross income) was 0.85. The simulation showed that without the socio-technical innovations provided by PSA, this index would be 0.80. The PSA also increased labor
productivity (in the 2018 cycle, it was R$7.86 per hour worked; without the innovations, it would be R$7.07). The high endogeneity indices and the increase in labor productivity show that the economic performance of the agroecosystems is based on the intensification of labor and not the high consumption of capital.

## Changes in systemic qualities

The radar graph (Figure 4) represents the average of the changes related to the autonomy attribute of the 12 agroecosystems. The autonomy index (a composition of the variations identified in the parameters related to this attribute) varied from 0.67 in the baseline year to 0.76 in 2019.

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4. Visual representation of qualitative changes related to the sustainability autonomy attribute - average of the 12 agroecosystems.</figcaption></figure>

The chart reveals that, in general, there has been no significant increase in dependence on market productive resources (parameters on the left). A small reduction in autonomy was identified in the “third-party work” parameter, a fact associated with the increased complexity of managing agroecosystems. It is also possible to identify that families resorted (and resort) to markets to buy animal feed and seeds. Regarding “seeds and seedlings,” there was a slight increase in the dependence on markets, mainly given the demand for vegetable seeds and fruit tree seedlings with the installation of economic garden beds and the expansion of backyards. Regarding fodder, there was a slight reduction in market purchases.
The survey showed changes in all parameters of the resource base self-cont-
trolled by the families (parameters on the right of the graph). The most significant
changes were identified in the “equipment/infrastructure” (with average variation
from 2.17 to 3.92), biodiversity (2.58 to 3.83), and water availability (2,67 to
3,92) parameters. The average scores attributed to the parameter “Forage / Ani-
mal Feed Availability” evolved from 2.67 to 3.67, and that for “Food self-suffi-
ciency,” from 2.58 to 3.42.

The study of the trajectories of the agroecosystems shows that the construc-
tion of infrastructure and acquisition of equipment were made possible, above
all, by the programs for “living with the semi-arid region,” implemented by ASA’s
member organizations (P1MC and P1+2), other federal policies, such as the Luz
para Todos (Light for All) Program, and the PSA. They were also built or pur-
chased with the families’ own accumulated resources.

The greater water availability increased biodiversity, whether of fruits, vege-
tables, and medicinal plants in the backyards or fodder species. The PSA increased
the self-controlled resource base by providing families with access to cisterns,
aviaries, economic beds with shaded nurseries, fodder machines for collective use,
boxes for beekeeping, and beekeeping equipment. In some cases, it allowed for
renovating goat and sheep shelters (apriscos) and setting up fodder production
areas. The “Brasil sem Miséria (Brazil Without Misery) Plan” also contributed to
the expansion of biodiversity by enabling the planting of forage species and the
purchase of animals, including breeding stock.

Innovations have led to an increase in and diversification of production for
families' consumption. The "land availability" parameter changes regard the fam-
ilies' greater engagement in networks that mobilize to defend the recognition
and guarantee of the territories of the traditional pastureland communities, the
certification of some of the communities by the government of Bahia as tradi-
tional pastureland communities, and, in some agroecosystems, the acquisition
(purchase or donation) of plots of land in the study period.

The integration of families into socio-technical learning networks was cru-
cial for the qualification of the workforce. However, the analysis shows limita-
tions to this parameter, associated with the dedication of members of many of the
12 families to non- and off-farm work and, in some cases, the recent migration
of young people.

Figure 5 presents qualitative changes in the parameters related to the social integration attribute (average of the 12 agroecosystems). The synthetic index ranged from 0.43 (reference year) to 0.70 (2019).
SOCIAL INTEGRATION

(Reference Index: 0,43; Current Index: 0,70)

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /><figcaption>Figure 5. Representation of qualitative changes related to the sustainability social integration attribute - average of the 12 agroecosystems</figcaption></figure>

All parameters show positive changes. Changes related to the parameter participation in community spaces dedicated to the common goods governance (2,17 to 3,42) refer, for example, to the intensified involvement of families in the management of areas of community use, such as pasturelands, water infrastructure, and fences. Some families also manage collective equipment, such as forage machines and beekeeping equipment.

Greater appropriation of the wealth produced in agroecosystems results from families' increased participation in direct sales initiatives, engagement in associations and cooperatives that market the production of the communities, and integration to events where the production is sold, creating their own clientele.

Positive changes were identified in the participation of families in political and organizational spaces, such as rural workers' unions, community associations, articulations of pastureland communities, and women's networks and groups. Families also engaged in PSA instances in rural territories, such as social control commissions.

The most significant qualitative changes in the “social integration” attribute refer to “access to public policies” (average range from 2,08 to 3,92) and “participation in socio-technical learning networks” (1,75 to 3,58).
In recent history, families accessed a significant set of public policies, such as P1MC, P1+2, and ATER. Moreover, many communities have benefited from the Luz para Todos Program. Access to social policies, mainly retirement, and public education, such as access to university and high school, were also identified. Some communities had projects executed with public institutions, such as the Brazilian Agricultural Research Company (EMBRAPA) Semi-Arid and the Federal University of the São Francisco Valley (UNIVASF). Others benefited from projects supported by the Ministry of Environment, such as initiatives for the recovery of degraded areas and the construction of toilets and ecological stoves in Sento Sé, or from projects supported by Petrobras (Brazilian Petroleum Company), such as native vegetation recovery initiatives by the NGO IRPAA.

The significant changes regarding “access to public policies” in recent years are mainly because of the participation of families in the PSA. Its implementation in the semi-arid region of Bahia, starting in 2016, coincided with the period when several federal public policies, such as the Cisterns Program and the National Technical Assistance Policy, began to be dismantled. Currently, the PSA is among the most comprehensive public programs aimed at rural communities in the territory. Beyond access to infrastructure and equipment, it has provided many opportunities for exchange among families, their interaction with the CAR’s technical teams and the NGOs responsible for technical assistance, and participation in project management.

The program also invests in productive inclusion policies of food safety, such as the territorial Municipal Inspection Service (SIM) (a sanitary inspection service for food of animal origin). It directly supports local markets of family farming production, such as fairs and other marketing venues.

The public policies and programs identified in the trajectories of all the families (P1MC, P1+2, ATER, and PSA) have something common: the actions conducted directly in the communities were (are) developed by NGOs working in the communities for many years (IRPAA, SASOP, SAJUC, and COOPERCUC), given the significant changes in the “participation in socio-technical learning networks” parameter. Although the communities are recent members, these networks date back to the 1980s. The public policies that gained greater scale from the 2000s expanded and densified socio-technical innovation networks. All the families of the agroecosystems dedicated time to participate in meetings, exchanges, courses, workshops, mutual aid activities and to receive visits from the technical teams.

The radar graph (Figure 6) represents the qualitative changes regarding the responsiveness attribute. The synthetic index of this attribute varied from 0.46 in the reference year to 0.68 in 2019.
<figure><img src="image_29.png" /><figcaption>Figure 6. Visual representation of qualitative changes related to the sustainability responsiveness attribute - average of the 12 agroecosystems</figcaption></figure>

Responsiveness is related to the internal mechanisms that give the agroecosystem the ability to respond to changes in its social, economic, and environmental system beyond the control of the SNAM, which may negatively or positively affect its economic-ecological performance. It is an attribute that incorporates four systemic qualities: stability, flexibility, resistance, and resilience (PETERSEN et al., 2017).

The capacity to store inputs (water and fodder) and live stocks increased, mainly given the increase in goats, sheep, chickens, the acquisition of cattle and diversification, and the area cultivated with forage species. The management work of the pastureland areas also contributed to the increase in live stocks.

Families accessed a greater diversity of markets, with the expansion of chicken farming, cultivation of vegetables, and their selling in local markets directly to consumers. They never ceased valuing other traditional markets, such as meat from goats, sheep, and cattle, or conventional markets to which they already had access, such as the honey market.

Significant changes regarding the parameter “income diversity” were also identified. Innovations in managing agroecosystems and access to markets, social policies, and income from pluriactivity gave the agroecosystems a greater capacity to resist the effects of the great drought between 2012 and 2018. The drought
warned families about the importance of investing in forage and water storage. Many infrastructures were built during the driest years with public policies, notably the P1+2 and Brazil Without Misery Plan. These innovations induced the rapid recovery of the productive capacity of these agroecosystems with the good rainy seasons that began in 2018.

The radar chart in Figure 7 indicates the qualitative changes related to gender equity and women's empowerment. The synthetic index of 0.45 in the reference year, increased to 0.58 in 2019.

Women's participation in socio-organizational spaces and as direct beneficiaries of public policies evolved, directly reflecting their increased participation in agroecosystem management and the appropriation of the wealth generated.

The changes mainly regard innovations in subsystems to which women dedicate more working time and whose products are marketed or used for self-consumption and donations, such as vegetables, fruit, and chicken production. Social spaces created or strengthened through the PSA promoted new interactions that contributed to the emancipatory struggles of women and addressed situations of isolation to which they are often subjected by the social relations established within families.

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /><figcaption>Figure 7. Visual representation of qualitative changes related to the sustainability gender equity and women's empowerment attribute - average of the 12 agroecosystems.</figcaption></figure>
The increased social participation of women provides access to knowledge, greater self-confidence in decision-making, and opportunities to establish new business relationships.

Women spend 23 times more hours on domestic and caregiving work than men; thus, they are overloaded, and there is an unequal division of tasks. The fact that there have been no qualitative changes in the “sexual division of domestic and care work” parameter in the study period shows the persistence of the socio-cultural characteristics associated with patriarchy, indicating the importance of intensifying the spaces for critical reflection on this issue to the organizations of the territory.

Moreover, for the 12 agroecosystems, men dedicate more time (on average) to paid activities outside their farms (three times more than women). Women also dedicate more time (twice that of men) to social participation.

Furthermore, women work in various subsystems that make up the agroecosystems, and there are no marked differences between the time invested by women and men in the sphere of work for market and self-consumption.

The Lume method assumes domestic and care work and the time dedicated to social participation are equivalent to the tasks dedicated to production for market or self-consumption. Hence, as per Feminist Economics (CARRASCO, 1999), all spheres of work make an equivalent contribution to the generation of wealth in the agroecosystem. Accordingly, the analysis of the 12 agroecosystems reveals that women contribute 87.4% more than men in generating the annual income of the families (excluding income from social policies).

The women's agroecological booklet (Cadernetas Agroecológicas) has contributed to removing from spotlighting and valuing the work and production by women. The booklet, a methodology developed by the Women's Working Group of the National Agroecology Network (Articulação Nacional de Agroecologia - ANA), has been successfully taken up by the PSA, highlighting the importance of unveiling the determining role of women as a strategy for strengthening their struggles for economic and political emancipation.

Thus, gender inequalities become an object of political debate to be incorporated into strategies to change the social, economic, and cultural reality in the rural world.

New markets built from the intensification of women's social participation and investments from public programs, such as P1+2 and PSA, in subsystems in which they play a leading role, such as vegetables and fruit production close to their homes and rearing chickens are innovations that contribute to agroecosystem resilience. In the last great drought, given short production cycles, families
rapidly increased the supply of food for their consumption and sale as soon as
rainy seasons regularized or when market opportunities arose.

Final considerations

The changes in the living and working conditions of the rural communities of the Brazilian semi-arid region have been significant since the 1980s, given the re-democratization. The study of the trajectories of socio-technical innovation of agro-ecosystems in the Territory of Sertão São Francisco revealed deep transformations in the logic of management in family farming over the last decades. This process intensified over the last 20 years with innovative and comprehensive public policies. The transformations have increased the resilience and autonomy of family farming, helping overcome the structural conditions of poverty reproduction.

It was possible to identify a determining role for public policies created after
the 1988 Constitution. The official recognition of the specificities of family farm-
ing from the second half of the 1990s onwards inaugurated a virtuous circle of
political-institutional innovation. This process intensified in the 2000s, recogniz-
ing family farming as a central, social, and economic agent for promoting food
and nutritional security and the fight against poverty, which are central points on
the political agenda of the Lula and Dilma governments.

Thus, recognizing the role of family farming as a promoter of rural and agri-
cultural development, this cycle brought new relationships between the State
and civil society, with the establishment of spaces for social participation in the
co-management of public policies. It was a determining condition for the State, at
the federal level, to become more permeable to proposals from social experience.
In the wake of this process, spaces for the co-management of public policies were
also created in some federation states, such as Bahia. Through the initiative of the
state government in interaction with civil society organizations, the territorial
development policy created at the national level was incorporated and improved,
becoming a reference for allocating and managing public policy resources for the
rural world of Bahia.

We analyzed the combined effects of the federal and state policies on the tra-
jectories of the 12 agroecosystems and identified a recurring pattern of dynamics
of socio-technical transformation. The following aspects of this pattern are as
follows:

* A significant increase in the participation of family members in associative and cooperative processes within their communities and territories. Through different collective action mechanisms promoted by public policies, cooperative processes have been created or improved, strengthening local networks
for the management of common goods. The improvement of pastureland
management practices, the associative management of equipment and arti-
sanal processing practices, the construction of new markets, as well as the
creation of circuits for the production and circulation of knowledge based on
the valorization of experiences and exchanges between farming families are
examples of the greater integration of families in socio-technical networks
at territorial level. In the study, this greater integration of families managing
agroecosystems was captured by the evaluation parameters proposed by the
Lume method. According to this evaluation, the Social Integration Index
varied from 0.43 to 0.70 (on a scale of 0 to 1) over the last few years as a
result of the involvement of these families in rural development programmes
with a territorial focus carried out by NGOs in the region with public policy
resources.

* Encouraging productive diversification by valuing agrobiodiversity (plant and animal) and the maintenance and ecological integration between subsystems. In addition, the recognition and valorization of common use pasturelands allows the maintenance of agricultural landscapes that conserve native biodiversity, fulfilling important economic and ecological functions for family farming. This orientation towards the development of agroecosystems allows for the continuous regeneration of soil fertility and animal feed through the management of locally produced biomass. It also makes it possible to maintain the health of crops and livestock through the effect of biotic self-regulation. Finally, it contributes to the strengthening of family autonomy in relation to the genetic resources used in production processes.

* Financing (refundable and non-refundable funds) essentially structures production units and communities, contributing to the appropriation and storage of ecological goods and increasing labor productivity. Water infrastructure; fencing areas for recovery of native vegetation (recaatingamento); structuring backyards, facilities and equipment for animal breeding; fostering beekeeping; equipment for family or collective use for processing, transportation and production commercialization are examples of public investments that allow for productive intensification of agroecosystems without structural dependence on banks and suppliers of industrial inputs.

* Support the construction of local markets, bringing together producers and consumers in the territory, boosting the economy of family farming based on the revaluation of the local food culture and, therefore, of agrobiodiversity. At the same time that these short commercialization circuits supported by the policies allow greater retention of the added value by farming families,
it provides access to healthy food for the local population at fair prices. As markets that absorb the diversity of production, these marketing circuits generate reverse effects on production systems by encouraging productive diversification, an aspect already discussed above. It is worth highlighting the effect of these trajectories on the increase in the quantity and diversity of production self-consumed by families and donated through reciprocal relations established in the communities.

* Recognition and appreciation of the work of women farmers through the creation of specific spaces for their participation in the processes of knowledge construction and management of collective enterprises and by financing of economic activities carried out by women within agroecosystems. While the active participation of women in the dynamics of socio-technical innovation proved decisive in reconfiguring the economy of agroecosystems (with an increase from 0.45 to 0.58 in the index of women's empowerment), spaces were created for critical reflection on the blockages imposed by patriarchal culture on the transformation processes underway. It is clear that the transformation of gender relations in families and family farming organizations is a prerequisite for unblocking socio-technical and economic transformation trajectories in agroecosystems and territorial innovation networks. In this sense, the contributions of feminism have been fundamental in institutional innovation cycles, particularly in the creation of public policies for rural and agricultural development.

These aspects converge toward a pattern of development of agroecosystems and territorial economies based on the continuous increase of the local and self-controlled resource base. It means a pattern of endogenous development that recognizes and valorizes territorial resources, whether ecological assets or latent socio-cultural capacities. The innovation trajectories driven by public policies are characterized precisely by the mobilisation and combination of these endogenous resources in order to develop autonomous economies that value family farming work.

From this point of view, the policies that allowed the trajectories analysed in the study contrast head-on with the dominant public policies for agriculture and rural development. This contrast can be verified even in the territory analyzed. In this territory, there are trajectories in which intensification results in the deforestation of the native vegetation (*caatinga*) and the growing dependence of agriculture on exogenous resources mobilized through markets. These trajectories of intensification based on intensive use of capital lead to specialized
agroecosystems, predominantly for export and dependent on agrochemicals and intensive irrigation with water from the São Francisco River.

In the global climate change context, whose negative effects on agricultural systems will tend to be more pronounced in semi-arid regions, development trajectories that combine economic intensification with technical autonomy highlight promising paths for public policy designs. Instead of the economic productivism that continues to guide policy design, the approaches highlight the possibility of developing multifunctional agriculture that can combine structural poverty alleviation and the regeneration of the biophysical base of agricultural ecosystems with the promotion of more resilient economic-ecological systems.

The study verified that the innovations incorporated into the agroecosystems in the period considered in the trajectory analysis strengthened various systemic safety mechanisms, which resulted in an increase in the average responsiveness index of the 12 agroecosystems from 0.46 to 0.68.

The main lesson that can be drawn from the analysis of the trajectories studied for the design of public policies is that the territorial approach of rural development programs should be oriented toward recognizing and strengthening multi-actor socio-technical networks in the territories. The changes verified at the scale of the agroecosystems studied resulted directly from the structural linking of these units in the networks organized in the territory of Sertão do São Francisco. This finding indicates the need to substitute the preferential focus of public policies for rural development: from family units, conventionally assumed as individual enterprises vertically linked to commercial chains commanded by extraterritorial actors, to the dynamics of collective action led by networks of social organizations in the territory.

In this process of forming territorial networks, the role of mediation assumed by Technical Advisory organizations based on the principles of agroecology stands out. This mediation occurs in two main directions. Vertically, these organizations plays an important role in mobilizing and giving strategic coherence to the public policy resources of different functional sectors of the State.

As became evident in the trajectories of the agroecosystems, the resources mobilized from different policies were combined with each other and associated with the resources of the territory, gradually expanding the self-controlled resource base on which family and community economies are reproduced. Horizontally, the mediation of technical advisory public services is done in the sense of fostering environments for socio-technical innovation in the territory through methodological approaches that recognize the role of farmers as bearers of knowledge and that create bridges with academic institutions for the dialogue of knowledge related to the reality of the territory.
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Peasants, agroecology, and territorial
policy in the “dry diagonal” of
the semi-arid region of Paraíba:
encounters, processes, and challenges

Márcio Caniello, Mireya Valencia Perafán

Introduction

Located in the heart of the Brazilian semi-arid region, Paraíba has a significant peasant population, whose formation dates back to the dawn of the XVIII Century. At the end of the 1950s, after centuries of socioeconomic exclusion and political under-mission forced by the dominant oligarchies, the peasants of Paraíba organized themselves politically in the Peasant Leagues, soon crushed by the military dictatorship and its acolytes. However, with the process of “political opening” initiated in the mid-1970s, farmers from Paraíba led social, political, and productive organizations through the articulation of social movements, rural unions, collectives, associations, and cooperatives of family farmers, with institutional partners such as NGOs, organized civil society, international cooperation organizations, and public universities as allies.

At the threshold of the 21st century, this interactive dynamic would result in consolidating the paradigm of “living with drought” and agroecology as strategies for survival and reproduction of the peasant population of Paraíba, notably in its extensive semi-arid portion. It is done through initiatives such as developing appropriate technologies and coping with drought, creative innovations in the production and storage of fodder for small livestock, diversifying plant and animal species in family production, disseminating creole seed banks, and multiplying organic crops, and small farmers’ markets.

Given this organizational accumulation in the so-called “family farming,”
Paraíba was a key state in the conception, construction, and execution of the ter-
ritorial development strategy in Brazil, an “institutional innovation” to improve
the lives of peasant populations and contribute to the food sovereignty of the Brazilian population and central objectives of the public policies implemented on a large scale by the governments of Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016).

This study reports on this historical construction and analyzes the dialectics between the Paraíban peasantry, their organizations, and allies with the territorial policy of the Federal Government (2003-2016) in the so-called “dry diagonal” of the Paraíba semi-arid region, which comprises the Rural Territories of Borborema, Western Cariri, Eastern Cariri, Curimataú, and Seridó, approved by the National Council for Sustainable Rural Development (CONDRAF). It analyzes the repercussions of the territorial policy and public policies of rural development, coexistence with the semi-arid, and agroecology in these territories during the Lula and Dilma governments. It also outlines challenges for their resumption given the dismantling of policies by the parliamentary-media coup of 2016, deepening under the current government.

## Paraíba: territory, semi-aridity, rurality, and peasant presence

The state of Paraíba is located under the domain of hot climates of low latitudes, with average annual temperatures above 18°C (FRANCISCO, 2017). With a diversified relief and varied soils, it is crossed by the “dry diagonal” (COHEN; DUQUÉ, 2001, p. 48) at the height of the so-called “Compartimento da Borborema,” which comprises a small part of the Paraíba Brejo and micro-regions of Cariri, Seridó, and Curimataú, located in the central portion of the state, where rainfall rates vary between 300 and 500 mm per year, in a regime marked by extreme irregularity (Figure 1).

Peasant presence is significant, with 125,489 farming establishments in Paraíba (77%) belonging to “family farming” in the last agricultural census (IBGE, 2017). The census excluded thousands of establishments that expanded their “pluriactivity” in the interim between its realization and the previous census in 2006 (DEL GROSSI et al., 2019), which counted 148,077 family farming establishments in Paraíba (88.5% of the total) (IBGE, 2006).
<figure><img src="image_31.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. Average Annual Rainfall (mm), Paraíba and Mesoregions.</figcaption></figure>

Source: adapted from FRANCISCO, 2017.

Considering that the articulation of agricultural activities with non-agricultural occupations by the members of the family productive unit is part of their “reproduction strategy” (SCHNEIDER, 2009) and reinforces the “peasant resistance” in the contemporary world (PLOEG, 2008), the 2006 Agricultural Census records the peasant presence in Paraíba more accurately.

Nevertheless, the peasantry is the most important actor in the Paraiban rural milieu because of its magnitude and, above all, longevity and resilience, given that the “peasantization” (PLOEG, 2008) of the Paraiban agrarian space began at the threshold of the eighteenth century, a trend observed in the “Brazilian Eastern Northeast” (PALACIOS, 1987, p. 327).

In three hundred years of peasant history, the state of Paraíba has experienced several processes of “de-pesantization” (PLOEG, 2008) of its agrarian spaces, always driven, with greater or lesser violence, by the economic interests of the ruling elites and large landowners. However, it has also experienced several processes of “re-pesantization,” where the productive transitions were not in conflict with those interests but were conquered and maintained by the resilience of peasants.

## Peasants of the “dry diagonal”: union renewal and the encounter with the university

At the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, the Brazilian trade union movement began to regain its protagonism in an adverse context of legal casuistry,
violent repression, and cooptation of collaborationist leaderships (the so-called “pelegos”) by the military dictatorship implanted in the country in 1964. Brazil was going through the “slow, gradual, and secure political opening” of General-President Geisel. The working class put pressure on the regime and the employers who benefited from it, from which emerged the so-called “new unionism” (LADOSKY; VÉRAS DE OLIVEIRA, 2014), having its turning point in the massive strikes of the metalworkers of the “ABC Paulista” led by Luís Inácio Lula da Silva.

The movement for union renewal in the cities was reflected in the country-
side (FAVARETO, 2006), including in Paraíba (BERTOLAZZI, 1989), where the
proprietary oligarchies, empowered by the military dictatorship and supported by
the repressive state apparatus, decimated the Rural Leagues (CARNEIRO; CIOC-
CARI, 2011, p. 27), the first movement of political articulation of rural workers
in Paraíba. The main ally of the rural workers in constructing the “new unionism”
in the 1980s was the Catholic Church (BERTOLAZZI, 1989, p. 63). However,
in the Compartment da Borborema, they would conquer another crucial ally: a
group of professors of Marxist extraction hired in the mid-1970s to work in the
Departments of Economics and Sociology and Anthropology of the UFPB, Cam-
pus II (now UFCG), where they would engage in an intense work of union advi-
sory, train and form peasant leaders, and support staff to rural social movements
(NOVAES, 2003, p. 133). 133) parallel to their regular teaching and research
activities in an “accentuated moment of struggles and mobilizations” (BASTOS,
2010, p. 40).

The relationship between the Master in Rural Sociology and peasants and their organizations was quite organic (DUQUÉ, 2003, p. 136), with two very important “reinforcements”: the Franco-Brazilian cooperation (1979/2010) and the NGOs that began to act with peasants and their organizations, such as the Popular Education Service (SEDUP) and the Program for the Application of Appropriate Technology to Communities (PATAC), which for many years was coordinated by Professor Ghislaine Duqué, an exponent of the Master’s Degree in Rural Sociology of Campina Grande.

This interactive process contributed decisively to the “union renewal” in two
strategic areas for the “new rural unionism” articulated by the CUT/PB since its
foundation in 1984: the Brejo region of Paraíba and the then called “Agreste
of Campina Grande,” with a total of 39 unions of Rural Workers (STRs), 31
of which were “renewed” - or at least “shaken up” - by the action of the cultist
“union oppositions” at the end of the 1980s (BERTOLAZZI, 1989 p. 127-132).

In Cariri, the dynamics of union renewal were different. The interaction
with the Catholic Church was more punctual and less institutional, given that it
happened through the support of some “progressive” priests and not the CEBs.
In Cariri, the process was unleashed “from within” the Federation of Agricul-
tural Workers of the State of Paraíba (FETAG/PB), starting with the STR of São
Sebastião do Umbuzeiro, among the first three to be created in the region (BER-
TOLAZZI, 1989, p. 246), which, unlike the other two established, was born
“authentic,” given that it was founded in 1974 by Luiz Silva, “a hired worker with
sandals on his feet” (BATISTA, 1997, p. 41).

Thus, at the start of the 1990s, the Compartimento da Borborema had
“authentic” leaders in the “renewed” unions interacting democratically with their
increasingly participatory bases in the various agendas on moving reflections and
struggles (BASTOS, 2010, p. 40). Leaders, unions, and bases tapped from the
advice of NGOs and universities, often supported by international cooperation.
The above is sufficient *background for the* “encounter” of the Borborema peasants
with agroecology in the 1990s and, subsequently, territorial policy in the first
decade and a half of the 21st century

Peasants of the “dry diagonal”: the
encounter with agroecology

At the beginning of the 1990s, the century-old ideology of “combating droughts” that had guided public policies for the semi-arid northeast began to crumble in the face of a new concept of “living with drought,” formulated by EMBRAPA technicians in 1982 (SILVA, 2008, p. 71). In 1993, when another drought devastated the region, hundreds of rural workers throughout the Northeast occupied the SUDENE headquarters in Recife (DUQUÉ, 2008, p. 135-136). This public act prompted the creation of the *Northeast Forum*, formed by more than 300 entities, whose manifesto defended that “the coexistence of man with semi-arid conditions can be assured [with] agrarian and agricultural policies, appropriate technologies, and democratic and decentralized management of water resources and public affairs” (apud DINIZ, 2002, p. 44). It is the great milestone of the ideological, strategic, and tactical inflection of organized civil society in the Brazilian semi-arid region toward a process of economic, social, ecological, and cultural transformation linked to the “transition to agroecology” (NIEDERLE et al., 2019).

The mobilization triggered in Recife was immediately followed up in
Paraíba, where it was “pulled” by CUT/PB, the STRs associated with it, and four
other NGOs (DINIZ, 2002, p. 51). Two were in the Sertão, and the other two
were based in Campina Grande. At the time, they comprised students, former
students, professors, and others who gravitated to the orbit of the UFPB/Campus
II. The Center for Cultural Action (CENTRAC) was founded in 1987 to provide advisory services to the union opposition slates and directions of the “renewed” unions (BASTOS, 2010, p. 73). PATAC focused on the “diffusion of appropriate technologies for the semi-arid [in] two main lines of action: the recovery, conservation, and improvement of the soil and the capture and storage of water” (ARAÚJO, 1988, p. 45-46). Both NGOs were active in what is now the territory of Borborema, but PATAC had a broader scope of action, given that it also developed its actions in municipalities of the current territories of Curimataú, Seridó, Cariri Ocidental, and Cariri Oriental (ARAÚJO, 1988, p. 98).

The main repercussion of the *Northeast Forum* in Paraíba was the creation of the Articulation of the Semi-Arid (ASA) in an event held in Campina Grande in June 1993 (DINIZ, 2002, p. 51), a network that currently “involves more than three thousand civil society organizations of distinct natures” (ASA, 2021). In that same year, AS-PTA (Assessoria e Serviços em Projetos de Agricultura Alternativa) was installed in the Borborema Territory, “introducing, in a more systematic and organized way, the agroecological debate in the Paraíba Agreste” (DELGADO, 2009, p. 44).

“The attempt to build another model of development (...) for the Agreste region of Paraíba began through the articulation of two movements: union renewal and the agroecological movement” (idem, p. 44), which would become effective through the creation of the Polo Sindical da Borborema, articulated by the NGOs CENTRU, CENTRAC, and AS-PTA (BASTOS, 2010, p. 59; PIRAUX et al., 2012, p. 7), “with the participation of the union advisory promoted by the professors of the Graduate Program in Rural Sociology of the UFPB” (BASTOS, 2010, p. 73). Resulting from “a series of mobilized events” that began in 1996 (idem, p. 66), that “union renewal pole” (as the “renewed” STRs were known in certain regions, such as Cariri in Paraíba [BATISTA, 1997, p. 150]) would be founded in 1998. It was later renamed Polo Sindical e das Associações da Agricultura Familiar da Borborema (POAB) (Trade Union Pole and Associations of Family Agriculture of Borborema), following the “option” of rural unionism for Family Agriculture (BASTOS, 2010, p. 52, *passim*), which reflected the identity reconfiguration process of the Brazilian peasantry, triggered by the PRONAF (CANIELLO et al., 2013, p. 86).

Nonetheless, the territory of Borborema was characterized by “a relatively consolidated social capital” (CANIELLO et al., 2012, p. 17). It would constitute itself as the focal point of the “agroecological transition” in the rural areas of Paraíba after the construction of a “partnership device” in 1998 (SABOURIN et al., 2014, p. 19) involving “groups of farmer-experimenters” (idem, p. 19). They were mobilized by the Polo Sindical, AS-PTA, UFPB professors from the Areia
and Campina Grande campuses (now UFCG), and CIRAD researchers (idem, p. 18). It was the origin of the “encounter” of farmers of the semi-arid region of Paraíba with agroecology, later spreading to other regions of the state by ASA (PIRAUX et al., 2012, p. 8).

In the Cariri Territory, where ASA was not active at the beginning of the 2000s, the “encounter” of the peasantry with agroecology would be promoted by the Peasant University Project (UNICAMPO) (LEAL et al., 2004, p. 211; TONNEAU, 2004), implemented between 2003 and 2010 (COUDEL et al., 2009). This project would have important repercussions on the construction and dynamics of the Cariri Territorial Forum. The Forum was approved in 2003 by the MDA, given the actions of the Unicampo Students Association (AAUC), a technical assistance NGO created by the project's graduates (COUDEL et al., 2011, p. 84ff), which would practice “a perennial collective engagement of actors in territorial governance mechanisms” (COUDEL et al., 2017, p. 162). The Forum would be decisive for the creation of the UFCG campus in Sumé in 2009, hosting the Center for Semi-Arid Sustainable Development (CDSA), which has “the agroecological paradigm as a reference,” as per its Academic Project (UFCG, 2008, p. 49).

## Social actors, agroecology, and the articulation of public policies on a territorial scale

The territorial perspective for sustainable development is, above all, a coordination effort between government sectors and levels, various types of social actors, and actors (public and private) and activities (rural and urban) (BERDEGUÉ; FAVARETO, 2020). The groups mobilized around the principles of agroecology in a long process of struggles and claims and facilitated the articulation of different but focused policy instruments, though not all devices were designed for agroecological transition. This mobilization gained strength given the institutional and political context by the coalition governments led by the Workers' Party (2003–2016), guided by central themes, such as food and nutritional security (Fome Zero and Brasil Sem Miséria programs), the strengthening of spaces for interlocution between the State and civil society and a new generation of public policies for family farming (SCHMITT et al., 2017).

The National Policy of Agroecology and Organic Production (PNAPO) is the result of the confluence of interests, resources, and strategies (LASCOUMES; LE GALÈS, 2014) of a set of actors who, since the 1970s, led local initiatives in favor of agroecology and, in the 1990s, configured themselves as networks on a territorial scale for the management of agroecological knowledge (SCHMITT et al., 2017). The PNAPO, established in 2012, is an achievement of the agroecological
and organic movement in the Federal Government to expand actions for sus-
tainable rural development (TROVATTO et al., 2017). As noted, the founding
documents of ASA, beyond proposing the “construction of a new society in the
semi-arid region,” recommend actions that ensure “the conservation, sustainable
use, and environmental recomposition of natural resources” such as “breaking
the monopoly on access to water, land, and other means of production” (DINIZ;
TAVARES DE LIMA, 2017, p. 7).

The One Million Cisterns Program (P1MC) and the One Land and Two
Waters Program (P1+2) are examples of public policies implemented in a coor-
dinated manner between organized civil society and the State that consolidated
actions for living in the semi-arid region and favored the expansion of access to
water resources for productive systems guided by the agroecological approach
(SCHMITT et al., 2017). When comparing the last two agricultural and live-
stock censuses, it is possible to verify that the percentage of agricultural establish-
ments with water resources in the Brazilian semi-arid region rose from a derisory
39.7% in 2006 to 75.7% in 2017. Thus, at the height of the greatest drought
ever recorded in the region, it increased by 91% over the period (Figure 2). The
semi-arid region of Paraiba, which, in 2006, presented a slightly better condition
than the Northeast region and the Brazilian semi-arid region but was much worse
than other regions, also showed a significant evolution in 2017 when the IBGE
registered that 87.9% of its agricultural establishments had water resources. The
figure equals that of the North (88.6%), Southeast (89%), and South (87.9%)
regions (Figure 2).

The Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) also created the Rural Terri-
tories Sustainable Development Program (PRONAT) in 2003. Although its ref-
erence documents do not explicitly call for an agroecological approach, the prin-
ciples addressing development processes are approximately based on the strategic
conjunction between social, environmental, and economic issues and the struggle
for rights and local actors’ active involvement. Under the articulation, coordina-
tion, and cooperation assumptions, territorial public policies should “modify the
territory by redrawing the characteristics of collective life, expanding the frame-
work of opportunities and adding value to the production of the various social
segments [and] actors of that territory” (BRASIL, 2005, p. 4).
<figure><img src="image_32.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2. Agricultural establishments with water resources (%) : Brazil, Regions, and Semi-arid. Source: Own preparation with data from IBGE, 2006 and 2017.</figcaption></figure>

PRONAT funded infrastructure and service projects in the rural territories. It supports the creation of collegiate participation bodies that, in some cases, advance strategies and prioritize investments for agroecological promotion, such as marketing infrastructure, fairs, training, and product processing. However, this policy alone did not meet the expectations of a territorial-based articulation that could solve the “acute problem of coordination failures” among actors, institu- tions, resources, and capacities to advance a “territorial agenda [beyond] the sum of its parts” (BERDEGUÉ; FAVARETO, 2020, p. 29-30).

Even so, studies on the PNAPO show how, in Agreste da Borborema, local actors and their organizations and allies creatively adapt and articulate different government instruments, “expanding capacities and increasing levels of resilience and sustainability” (SCHMITT et al., 2017, p. 112). This process strengthened a network of farmer-experimenters, resulting in important gains in autonomy and the construction of alliances with research institutions and universities.

Peasants of the “dry diagonal”: an
encounter with territorial policy

Among the first 50 territories approved in the framework of PRO-NAT in 2003, four were in Paraíba, and two were located in the “dry diagonal”: the territories of Borborema and Cariri (the latter later subdivided into Western and Eastern Cariri), later be joined by the territories of Curimataú and Seridó Paraibano, as ratified in 2007. Borborema was monitored by a UFCG research and extension team within the scope of the Cells Project (Public Call MDA/SDT/CNPq - Rural Territory Management No. 05/2009) between 2009 and 2014. The work would be taken up this year in that territory, Cariri Oriental, Curimataú, and Seridó
by two Extension Centers in Territorial Development (NEDETs) of the same university, selected in the Public Call CNPq/MDA/SPM-PR No. 11/2014. We have already shown elsewhere that the main results of PRONAT were qualitative (VALENCIA et al., 2020; PIRAUX; CANIELLO, 2019). Indeed, an opinion survey conducted in 2016 with 3,918 components of 146 territorial collegia from all units of the federation (WALTER, 2019, p. 2) showed that learning, creation of common goods, trust, ties between actors, and territorial identity were the results most valued by the respondents, a trend verified by careful statistical analysis (WALTER, 2019, p. 21-33; PIRAUX et al., 2020).

Evidently, the rural territories located in the “dry diagonal” of the semi-arid region of Paraíba did not escape the rule; it is necessary to analyze what “connected” the PRONAT territories: the preparation and implementation of investment projects under the Action “Support for Infrastructure Projects and Services” (PROINF), present in the Federal General Budget (OGU) between 2003 and 2016.

From Table 1, during the 13 years of implementation of PRONAT in Paraíba, 333 investment projects were approved with transfers, in current values, amounting to R$88 million. The territorial collegiates of the “dry diagonal” approved 41% of the projects, demonstrating their differential degree of mobilization, the Territory of Western Cariri being the most effective, with 51 approved projects (15% of the state total).

Many of these projects were not implemented given various factors (PIRAUX; CANIELLO, 2019, p. 373-4). The “choices” of the territorial collegia reveal the dominant concerns of farmers in the “dry diagonal” of the semi-arid region of Paraíba: poor road infrastructure, scarce water resources, low mechanization in the field, and challenges in accessing markets. However, they also show some of their greatest potentials: beef and dairy goat farming, for which fodder support is a major challenge in the semi-arid region, organic production, and agroecological markets.
<table><caption>Table 1. Proinf projects - Paraíba and selected territories (2003-2016).</caption><thead><tr><td>Territory</td><td>Projects</td><td>%</td><td>Lending Amount (R$)</td><td>%</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Borborema</td><td>36</td><td>11%</td><td>7.177.006,20</td><td>8%</td></tr><tr><td>Western Cariri</td><td>51</td><td>15%</td><td>9.973.494,32</td><td>11%</td></tr><tr><td>Eastern Cariri</td><td>25</td><td>8%</td><td>4.651.016,16</td><td>5%</td></tr><tr><td>Curimataú</td><td>19</td><td>6%</td><td>4.634.726,96</td><td>5%</td></tr><tr><td>Seridó Paraibano</td><td>5</td><td>2%</td><td>1.050.906,00</td><td>1%</td></tr><tr><td>Other</td><td>197</td><td>59%</td><td>60.526.241,68</td><td>69%</td></tr><tr><td>Total Paraíba</td><td>333</td><td>100%</td><td>88.013.391,32</td><td>100%</td></tr></tbody></table>

Source: Own preparation, with data from SICONV/CEF (2020).

## PROINF: The case of Território da Borborema

The limits of this work do not allow for analyzing in-depth all the projects; we will consider the case of Borborema, where 18 projects were effectively implemented; that is, half of the approved proposals. In 2003 and 2004, when the territorial collegiate was still in formation, seven projects were submitted, whose resources were decentralized directly to the prefectures with the following objects: the construction of cisterns and underground dams, a Producer's Market, and the purchase of equipment and consumables for agroecological fairs. As these projects bypassed the social management cycle, they were not "appropriated" by actors but by the municipalities.

In 2005, the territorial collegiate approved three projects, the most important of which was the construction of the Mother Seed Bank, a bold proposal by the Polo Sindical, proposed by the state government. The case of the Mother Bank is instructive, for the project has a clear agroecological bias and reveals the actors' vision of the future. It was conceived to develop a very important territorial asset (native seeds) that had already been valued by a broad collective process led by ASA called "Seeds of Passion" (ANA, 2012).

However, the work progressed very slowly and presented many construction problems when completed in late 2013, making its use unfeasible. Over the years, these problems worsened until, finally, in 2019, necessary repairs were made, and the building could finally be used. Currently, the Mother Bank is overseen by a cooperative formed to manage it. Beyond being a kind of "central bank" of the network of community, seed banks spread throughout the state of Paraíba, producing an agroecological couscous, with the necessary equipment for large-scale
production of “flocão” cornmeal, which is widely accepted in the Northeastern market and could add much value to the production of agroecological corn.

Another major project approved in 2008 was the construction of a Family Agricultural School (EFA) in the municipality of Lagoa Seca, in a partnership between UEPB and the Landless Workers' Movement (MST), which faced a series of bureaucratic, design, and budgetary problems, but whose work was completed in late 2014 and currently houses the Elisabeth and João Pedro Teixeira Training Center, managed by the MST.

Among all projects developed in the territory of Borborema, the most emblematic, given its successes and failures, was the one idealized by the Polo Sindical and approved in 2005 by the Forum. It was extremely simple; it only required the acquisition of threshing and forage machines managed by the unions. It aimed at livestock food security via silage feed production from natural pasture and residues of crops traditionally planted by the region's peasants, corn and beans, using simple technology: the “trench silos.”

However, when the machines were acquired, there was a movement by the municipalities, which demanded shared management of the machinery. Thus, an agreement was reached; the forage machines were transferred to the STRs, and the threshing machines, to the municipalities. In 2011, a team of researchers from UFCG sought this equipment to evaluate its use and found one threshing machine deposited in the garage of a deputy mayor. All of the forage harvesters were in full operation and managed by the STRs, which set up an agenda for using the machines and sharing the cost (in general, farmers pay for the fuel).

Even today, this dynamic persists. As per the farmers interviewed, the project is a great success because it guarantees forage support to the farms during dry periods, giving greater sustainability to the family production unit. The forage machines acquired with PROINF resources in 2006 have since produced an average of 2 tons/year of silage (Figure 3), an amount that oscillates, given frequent droughts, benefiting around 150 peasant families in the territory every year.
<figure><img src="image_33.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3. Evolution of silage production by the POAB, territory of Borborema (kg).</figcaption></figure>

Source: Own preparation, with data from Polo Sindical da Borborema (POAB), 2021.

Thus, simple but well-designed projects with a viable management plan administered via the skills of organized and legitimized social capital have every chance of being sustained over time, benefiting territorial development actors. However, the deleterious effect of local power on territorial dynamics is evident because if threshing machines were available, much more silage could be produced.

## The challenges of the new decade

The third generation of public policies for family farming (GRISA, SCHNEIDER, 2015; SABOURIN, 2018) comprises a *mix of* governmental instruments that combined mechanisms and approaches shared with actors historically marginalized from the public arenas. The significant number of public policies developed in the first decade of the 21st century addressed years of demands by family farming movements.

At the territorial scale, collective actors created synergies that enhanced the resources and results of the public actions, given their political articulations, capabilities, and territorial assets. Hence, they are configured as “territories of collective projects stimulated by the State” (MALUF, 2013, p. 73), where the interdependence between the state apparatus and social organizations for managing public policies was the highlight. In the Borborema Compartment, the construction of this “new socio-political practice” (DINIZ; LIMA, 2017) was guided by the paradigm of “living with the semi-arid,” as opposed to the ideology of combating drought and agricultural modernization.
Despite this “environment of great social mobilization” (SCHMITT et al., 2017, p.117), the dismantling of public policies for family farming that began in 2016 generated a political-institutional context that restricted (and restricts) opportunities for collective actions (SILVA; SCHMITT, 2012). Thus, it is necessary to form broad coalitions (BERDEGUÉ; FAVARETO, 2020) and advance the construction of what Maluf (2013, p. 73) calls “territories-networks,” where collective actors elaborate territorial projects thanks to “the sharing of ideas in the same territory or among non-overlapping territorial clusters.”

The current scenario requires the search for innovative strategies with a true territorial strategy that is part of the reinvention models for the development of rural spaces (VALENCIA; FAVARETO, 2020, p. 124). This process returns to the idea of territories as “spaces of transformation” (idem, p. 123), where the emphasis on multidimensionality supersedes economic productivity, boosting all areas that generate and reproduce the ways of being and living in a territory. Hence, an intersectoral approach is necessary given that “multiple dimensions of territorial life cannot be achieved exclusively with agricultural policies, and fragmented investment from various areas of government is not sufficient; complementarity and coordination are required” (idem, p. 123). Institutionally, it is necessary to change the sectoral bias and the orientation of short-term investments. Thus, it is necessary to expand the capacities for planning and contractualization of projects that transform the territories. In this same dimension, it is important to note that it is not a matter of leaving the articulation of public policies to local actors because “if they are not designed in a complementary way from above, it is not possible to coordinate them from below” (idem, p. 124).

## Final considerations

In any case, we believe that the territorial policy has left a good legacy in the territories of the “dry diagonal” of the semi-arid region of Paraíba:

* A territorial, social, and organizational identity reinforced by the creation of common goods, trust, and ties between actors and their organizations

* The positive impacts of successful investment projects and the learning emergent from the unsuccessful ones; the achievement of a UFCG *campus* in Cariri focused on the sustainable development of the semi-arid

* The construction of an MST Training Center in Borborema, which the UEPB's Agroecology Bachelor's Degree Course is running nearby; a Mother's Bank of Passion Seeds (what a beautiful name, indeed), articulating the
hundreds of community banks of native seeds that preserve the seeds of the survival of the peasants of Paraíba

* The thousands of trench silos full of fodder for small livestock, the “savings” of rural families

* The dissemination and strengthening of family farm fairs in several cities in these territories, reviving daily the message of agroecology among producers and consumers

Much more research must be done to evaluate the real weight of the public policies to combat poverty and misery, rural and territorial development, and coexistence with the semi-arid region implemented between 2003 and 2016 in Brazil by the Lula and Dilma governments. Nevertheless, one thing is certain: in the longest drought that this vast and long-suffering region has ever experienced (2012–2017), we did not see, as before, hunger and thirst raging in the fields, looting in markets and fairs, scorching “work fronts,” legions of squalid and humiliated retirants dragging themselves like outcasts along the roads.

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# About the authors

## Allan Milhomens

Master's degree student at the Postgraduate Program in Environment and Rural Development of the Faculty of Planaltina, University of Brasilia (UnB). Environmental Analyst and anin the career of Environmental Specialist linked to the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources. He works in the area of sustainable rural development under the Ministry of Environment. Bachelor in Journalism from the University of Brasilia. allmilhomens@gmail.com

## Ana Paula Ferreira

Ph.D. in Natural Resources and Sustainability from the University of Córdoba, Spain, and Master's in Agroecology with a sustainable approach to agriculture from the International University of Andalusia, Spain. Consultant on governance and public policies at the UN-WOMEN, where she works on the themes of agroecology, food security, women's rights, feminism, black feminism, peasantry, and sustainable development. anapferreira1968@gmail.com

## Anderson Ramos de Oliveira

Agronomic Engineer from the Federal University of Espírito Santo. Master's and Ph.D. in Plant Production from the Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro. Researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and working at the Center for Agricultural Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics in the area of Agroenergy Systems. anderson.oliveira@embrapa.br

## Carlos Hiroo Saito

Professor, with a dual assignment at the Department of Ecology at the Institute of Biological Sciences and the Center for Sustainable Development of the University of Brasilia, Brazil. Master's in Education from the Fluminense Federal University and Ph.D. in Geography from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Chair of the Global Water Partnership-South America. carlos.h.saito@hotmail.com
Carolina Milhorance

Ph.D. in Political Science and Sustainable Development. Researcher at the Cen-
tre for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development
(CIRAD/ UMR Art-Dev). carolina.milhorance@cirad.fr

Claudia Job Schmitt

Sociologist. Professor at the Social Sciences Graduate Program in Development Agriculture and Society; Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (CPDA/UFRRJ). Team member of the Observatory of Public Policies for Agriculture (OPPA). claudia.js21@gmail.com

Cristiane Moraes Marinho

Professor at the Federal Institute of Sertão Pernambucano and collaborating lec-
turer in the Postgraduate Program in Rural Extension of UNIVASF. Pedagogy
Graduate. Ph.D. Rural Extension. cristiane.marinho@ifsertao-pe.edu.br

Daniela Nogueira

Senior Researcher at the Center for Sustainable Development of the University of Brasilia. Professor of the Master's Program ProfÁgua - Management and Reg- ulation in Water Resources. Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Brasília/ Paris 8/Centre National de Recherche Scientifique. Post-Doctorate in Sustainable Development. Founder of the Latin American Women for Water Collective. dan- ielanogueiracds@gmail.com

Denes Dantas Vieira

Professor at UNIVASF. Permanent Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Rural Extension of UNIVASF and Postgraduate Program in Agroecology and Territorial Development - Associação Ampla UNIVASF/UFRPE/UNEB. Bachelor in Social Sciences, Master's and Ph.D. in Social Sciences.
denes.vieira@univasf.edu.br

Denis Monteiro

Agronomist. Technical Advisor to AS-PTA Family Agriculture and Agroecology.
Ph.D. from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ). Member
of the Coordinating Board of the National Commission on Agroecology and
Organic Production (CNAPO) between 2012 and 2018. Executive Secretary of
Articulação Nacional de Agroecologia (ANA) between 2009 and 2021. denisagro-
ecologia@gmail.com
## Edson Diogo Tavares

Researcher Ph.D. in Sustainable Development from the University of Brasilia. Master's in Agronomy from the Federal University of Lavras. Agronomic Engineering Graduate from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. Researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) from 1989 to 2019. Member of the Sergipan Network of Agroecology (Resea). edsondiogo@gmail.com

## Eduardo de Lima Caldas

Economist (USP) with Masters in Political Science (USP) and Public Administration and Government (FGV). Ph.D. in Political Science (USP). Post-Doctorate in Territorial Management (Cirad). Post-Doctorate in Social Sciences (USP). Professor of Public Policy Management and Environmental Science at the University of São Paulo (USP). elcaldas@hotmail.com

## Eduardo Sávio Passos Rodrigues Martins

Hydrologist with a Ph.D. from Cornell University. Adjunct Professor at the Federal University of Ceará. President of the Ceará Meteorology and Water Resources Foundation (FUNCEME). Collaborating Professor in the Graduate Program in Climate and Energy of the State University of Ceará. presidencia@funceme.br

## Elson de Oliveira

Consultant and Rural Extensionist - CAR-Bahia. Degree in Agronomy. Master's in Rural Extension. Ph.D. student in Agroecology and Land Development at PPGADT/UNIVASF. elsonagro@gmail.com

## Eric Sabourin

Anthropologist and Sociologist. Senior Researcher at CIRAD Montpellier (Umr ART- Dev); Collaborating Researcher at the Center for Sustainable Development and the PPG MADER Program, University of Brasília (UnB). eric.sabourin@cirad.fr

## Flaviane de Carvalho Canavesi

Professor at the School of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Brasília. Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Master's degree in Development, Society, and Agriculture from CPDA/UFRRJ. Graduated in Agronomy from the Federal University of Viçosa.
Coordinates the Center for Studies, Research, and Extension in Agroecology at
UnB. flavianecanavesi@unb.br

Francislene Angelotti

Agronomic Engineer. Master's and Ph.D. in Agronomy from the State University of Maringá. Researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, working at the Center for Agricultural Research of the Semi-Arid Tropics, in the area of Climate Change. Member of the Teaching Staff of the Postgraduate Program in Environmental Science and Technology at the University of Pernambuco. francislene.angelotti@embrapa.br

Frédéric Goulet

Ph.D. in Sociology. Researcher at the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement. Visiting Professor at the CPDA, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. frederic.goulet@cirad.fr

Helder Ribeiro Freitas

Professor at the Federal University of São Francisco Valley - UNIVASF. Permanent Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Rural Extension of UNIVASF and the Postgraduate Program in Agroecology and Territorial Development - Associação Ampla UNIVASF/UFRPE/UNEB. Agronomy Graduate. Master's and Ph.D. in Soil and Plant Nutrition. Coordinates the NUSAN/CVT/NEA and the Research Group Sertão Agroecológico/UNIVASF. helder.freitas@univasf.edu.br

Helena Rodrigues Lopes

Ph.D. candidate at the Social Sciences Graduate Program in Development, Agriculture, and Society; Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (CPDA/UFRRJ). helenaeco.agro@gmail.com

Jean-Luc Battini

Researcher in agronomy, specialized on perennial crops and agroforestry tropical
systems at CIRAD; actual Regional representative of CIRAD, INRAe and Agree-
nium for Brazil and southern cone countries; founding member of the ReFBN
network; brasil-conesul@cirad.fr
Joacir Rufino de Aquino

Economist and Master in Rural and Regional Economics from UFCG. Adjunct Professor IV at the State University of Rio Grande do Norte (Assú Campus). Regional Representative (2017–2021) and Vice-President (2021–2023) in the Northeast of the Brazilian Society of Economics, Administration, and Rural Sociology (SOBER). Member of the International Celso Furtado Development Policies Center. joaciraquino@yahoo.com.br

Juliane Rafaele Alves Barros

Agronomic Engineer and Technologist in Irrigated Fruit Culture from the Instituto Federal do Sertão Pernambucano. Master in Agronomy from the Federal University of Paraíba. Ph.D. student in Plant Genetic Resources at the State University of Feira de Santana/Embrapa Semiárido. juliane-ab@hotmail.com

Louise Cavalcante

Ph.D. candidate in Public Administration and Policy at the University of Wagen-
ingen. Master's in Sustainable Development from the University of Brasília. Bach-
elor's in Ecology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. Email: csc.
louise@gmail.com

Lucas Ricardo Souza Almeida

Undergraduate student in Agronomic Engineering - UNIVASF. lucas.ricardo@discente.univasf.br

Lúcia Marisy Souza Ribeiro de Oliveira

Professor at UNIVASF. Permanent Professor of the Postgraduate Programs in Rural Extension of UNIVASF and Postgraduate in Agroecology and Territorial Development - Associação Ampla UNIVASF/UFRPE/UNEB. Pedagogy Graduate. Ph.D. in Sustainable Development of the Humid Tropics. lucia.oliveira@univasf.edu.br

Luciano Marçal da Silveira

Agronomist. Master's degree student at the International University of Andalusia. Technical Advisor and Member of the Coordination Nucleus of AS-PTA Family Agriculture and Agroecology and the Biodiversity Working Group of the National Agroecology Articulation (ANA). Coordinator of the AS-PTA Local Development Program in the Territory of Polo da Borborema, PB (1993–2010)
and member of the Executive Coordination of Articulação do Semiárido Brasileiro (ASA) from 2005 to 2009. luciano@aspta.org.br

## Luis Cláudio Mattos

Ph.D. in Social Sciences in Development, Agriculture, and Society, with special focus in Agrarian and Territorial Development of the Semi-arid Region, from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (CPDA/DDAS/ICHS/UFRJ). Adjunct Professor in Rural Extension, Agroecology, and Sustainable Development at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE). Collaborating Professor of the Professional Doctorate of the Postgraduate Program in Agroecology and Territorial Development (PPGADT/UNIVASF/UNEB/UFRPE). luis.mattos@ufrpe.br

## Márcio Caniello

Professor of Anthropology at the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG) and permanent lecturer in the Postgraduate Program in Social Sciences (PPGCS). Master's in Social Anthropology from the Postgraduate Program in Social Anthropology of the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (PPGAS/MN/UFRJ, 1993). Ph.D. in Sociology from the Federal University of Pernambuco (PPGS/UFPE, 2001). Co-creator and co-coordinator of the Universidade Camponesa Project (UniCampo, 2003-2010). caniello@ufcg.edu.br

## Maria de Fatima Vidal

Agronomic Engineer. Master in Rural Economics from the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). Researcher at the Technical Office for Northeast Economic Studies (ETENE-BNB). fatimavidal@bnb.gov.br

## Maria Odete Alves

Agronomic Engineer. Ph.D. in Sustainable Development from the University of Brasília (UNB). Researcher at the Technical Office for Northeast Economic Studies (ETENE-BNB). moalves@bnb.gov.br

## Mário Lúcio Ávila

Professor at the University of Brasília in the Postgraduate Courses in Environment and Rural Development (MADER) and Public Management (PPGP). Ph.D. in Sustainable Development. Master in Rural Administration. Coordinates the Centre for Family Farming Management and Innovation (CEGAFI-CEGAFI-CEGAFI). unbavila@gmail.com
## Miguel Julio Machado Guimarães

Agronomic Engineer from the Federal University of the Recôncavo da Bahia. Master's and Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering from the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco. Post-Doctorate in Agricultural Engineering from the Federal University of Vale do São Francisco. Professor at the Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology of Maranhão (São Raimundo das Mangabeiras Campus). Member of the Teaching Staff of the Graduate Program in Agricultural Engineering at the Federal University of São Francisco Valley. miguel.guimarães@ifma.edu.br

## Mireya Eugenia Valencia Perafán

Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the University of Brasília (UnB). Master's in Rural Development from the Pontifical Javeriana University of Colombia. Professor at the Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine at UnB. Chairs the Brazilian Network for Research and Management in Territorial Development (RETE) and is a member of the Public Policies and Rural Development Network in Latin America. mireya@unb.br

## Patrícia dos Santos Mesquita

Ph.D. in Sustainable Development from the University of Brasília (UnB). Master's in Geography from the University of Victoria (Canada). Bachelor's Degree in Biology (UFRN). Currently a post-doctoral researcher at INCT-Odisseia and Rede Clima at the Center for Sustainable Development (CDS/UnB) and executive editor of the *magazine Sustentabilidade em Debate* (UnB). patriciasmesquita@gmail.com

## Paulo Frederico Petersen

Agronomist, Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the Universidade Pablo de Olavide (Spain). Executive Coordinator of AS-PTA Family Agriculture and Agroecology. Editor of the *Journal Agriculturas: Experiences in Agroecology*. Member of the Board of Directors of the Brazilian Association of Agroecology (ABA) and the Executive Core of the National Articulation of Agroecology (ANA). Member of the Coordinating Board of the National Commission on Agroecology and Organic Production (CNAPO) between 2012 and 2018. paulo@aspta.org.br
Peter May

Ph.D. in Natural Resource Economics from Cornell University. Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Social Sciences in Development, Agriculture, and Society at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (CPDA/ DDAS/ICHS/ UFRRJ). Permanent Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Public Policy, Strategies, and Development (PPED-IE/UFRJ). peterhmay@gmail.com

Rita de Cássia Rodrigues Gonçalves-Gervásio

Professor at UNIVASF. Permanent Professor of the Graduate Program in Agronomy at UNIVASF. Collaborator of the Postgraduate Program in Agroecology and Territorial Development - Associação Ampla UNIVASF/UFRPE/UNEB. Agronomy Graduate. Master in Agronomy. Ph.D. in Entomology. rita.gervasio@univASF.edu.br

Vanderlise Giongo

Agronomic Engineer from the Federal University of Pelotas. Master and Ph.D. in Soil Science from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, working at the Center for Agricultural Research of the Semi-Arid Tropics in the area of Soil Management and Conservation. Among the Teaching Staff of the Graduate Program in Environmental Science and Technology at the University of Pernambuco. vanderlise.giongo@embrapa.br