A experiência do Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores - MPA com sementes crioulas no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

The Small Farmers Movement (SFM), was created in 1996 in Rio Grande do Sul State and has consolidated itself as a peasant movement whose social base is organized into groups of families in peasant communities. As a movement in action, the SFM seeks to rescue peasant identity and culture, through a new productive base based on the foundations of peasant agroecology and popular supply, cooperation, its historical experience based on the development of the field and the guarantee food sovereignty. In this sense, the general objective of the research was to verify the experience that the SFM has accumulated over its trajectory in the field of possession sovereignty and genetic conservation vis-à-vis the consolidation of work with heirloom seeds in the Rio Grande do Sul State through collective custody of seeds and the construction and consolidation of a Heirloom Seed Conditioning Plant in 2015. The study universe was composed of SFM leaders, founders or not of the movement and guardian seed farmers who interacted with the thematic of the study. The hypothesis of this work was the assertion that the collective actions of the SFM can promote the participation and the necessary conditions for the community custody of seeds in a complementary and interdependent way. Interviews were conducted through a structured questionnaire, which were applied to the different social actors involved in the implementation and experience of the Small Farmers Movement in Brazil, as well as those responsible for the Seed Conditioning Plant (SCPs) and farmers. Research sources were also documenting and the personal experience of the author of this dissertation, in a participatory research. In the course of the study, it was found that triggers for the foundation of the movement in Rio Grande do Sul State were the climatic adversities of the 90s, the identity and representativeness crisis of farmers in face of the current union models that did not represent the working class of the field, the very difficulties seen in the countryside in the face of impoverishment and the marginalization of farmers in the face of the exploitation caused by capitalism. It became evident in the research the importance of the movement commitment to the proposal of a new model of agriculture for the Brazilian countryside, entitled “Peasant Plan”. According to what the interviewees pointed out, the Plan, as a political platform, guides actions towards the social, democratic and popular transformation of Brazilian society, fulfilling its relevant social role, which is the production of healthy foods, especially from the guarantee of the genetic sovereignty of the materials owned by farmers. The work revealed that the SFM, through its achievements and partnerships linked to its strategy in the conservation and use of genetic resources, represents a solid foundation for the actions of farmers. It was found that although there are many bottlenecks in the production of heirloom seeds, in Rio Grande do Sul State, the opportunities given to farmers by the SFM were able to generate sufficient knowledge and trust among the actors involved. The same was found when analyzing the Heirloom Seed Conditioning Plant, which, in addition to currently being part of the strategy organization that has fulfilled its role in massifying the heirloom seed production.