A agricultura e o desenvolvimento sob a óptica da multifuncionalidade: o caso de Santo Antônio de Pádua (RJ)

Abstract

Santo Antônio de Pádua belongs to the Northwest Region, one of the poorest regions of Rio de Janeiro State, whose economy has straight relations with agricultural sector. Such being the case, the early formation of the town might be strongly related with the cycles in which the agricultural activities have been passed through over the years, initiated with the transference of the coffee cycle to the northwest zone of the State, even at the end of the XXI Century. Even now, these agrarian roots remain there. Out of the total area of the town, about 50 per cent are occupied with the agricultural establishment where the majority of town s population is employed in agricultural activities (direct and indirectly). Santo Antônio de Pádua s agricultural structure consists of the families of the farmers, almost living in poverty with scarce automatization and mechanization, as well as poor diversification in production, are dedicated to subsistence production and/or to earn daily living expenses by dairy and tomato cultivation. In a sense, the agricultural sector is the major enterprise in the town, which creates more employment opportunities than Commercial and Services sectors. So, despite of the so-to-say agricultural crisis (low market prices, abandonment of agriculture) it might be too early to say that the agricultural activities in the town may be fade away in some way or other. Actually, new demands are taking place in these rural areas that can bring on new opportunities to the development of these areas. These tendencies are the increase of non-agricultural activities (pluriactivity), the rising of the alternative cultivations (organic and agroecological products), growth of diversification in household farmers production and the increase of the share of differentiated products as pisciculture and ovine and caprinecultures. In addition, the public initiatives (governmental and non-governmental) to support farmers and to improve the rural development are being implemented there, what have contributed to conform a social network that operates in the local and regional levels. Taking in consideration the context regarding the agricultural activity in Santo Antônio de Pádua, we opted to use the notion of multifunctionality of agriculture as analytical frame, leading our analysis on farmers and development. Such idea enlarger the vision concerned with agricultural activities and its linkage with the development of rural areas, associating the practice to increase more benefits and amenities than the actual food and raw-materials production to it. In this way, the discussion of agricultural development is improved with aspects related in the environmental matters, so as to maintain the social and cultural issues of rural communities, for creation of new opportunities to create the employment in rural areas against single, focus over the quantity and price of the products they make. To conclude, the enhancement of agricultural approach would represent an expressive progress toward the configuration of an alternative project of territorial development that regards actually the specific matters of the rural areas, as well as, the way that stimulates the constitution of an agricultural pattern to be friend with environment.