THE FARM FAMILY FROM ALTO URUGUAI, RS: COMMODITIZATION AND REPRODUCTION STRATEGIES IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF TRÊS PALMEIRAS

Abstract

This study intends to analyze the mercantilization of family farming and its reproduction strategies in Alto Uruguai, RS. Even though the study includes Alto Uruguai territory, the data have been collected in the Municipality of Três Palmeiras, where the valorization of social processes and historic paths of agricultural work and production increasingly leads family farmers into mercantile circuits. As a consequence, their production becomes increasingly mercantilized. Mercantilization is seen as a process of externalization of the production relations, in which the farmer becomes dependant on the relations with social and economic environments, be it to buy supplies or goods. In Alto Uruguai, this process of mercantilization has taken family farmers to establish social and economic relations which privilege productive specialization, concentration of the factors of production and the individualization of the productive process. Thus, they end up reinforcing an agricultural production pattern which, historically, has proved to be concentrating and excludant, which accentuates processes of social and economic differentiation among family farmers.