Possibilidades, limitações e implicações institucionais: análise do Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar no município de Pelotas-RS

Abstract

Since the 2000s, government efforts to combat hunger and malnutrition in Brazil have intensified. For the purposes of this dissertation, it is worth highlighting, in particular, the change in the National School Feeding Program (PNAE) in 2009, when, under Law 11,947, it was established that at least 30% of the resources Of the National Fund for the Development of Education (FNDE) for school feeding should be applied to purchase food from family farming. This is a very important change both for the country's food and nutritional security and for the strengthening of family farming. However, many Brazilian municipalities have difficulties to contemplate the minimum percentage of purchases of family agriculture established by law. This is the case of the municipality of Pelotas, located in Rio Grande do Sul, which only reached this percentage in 2014, with 40.70%. In 2010, the acquisitions of family agriculture accounted for 0.19% of the value of school feeding. In 2011 and 2012 there were no purchases of family agriculture in the municipality and in 2013, 21.73% were bought. Given this scenario, the dissertation sought to understand the rules (formal or informal) present in this institutional market that allow or limit the participation of family agriculture. For this analysis we used the neoinstitutionalist approaches, which deal with the formal and informal rules interacting in the social environment. In addition, in methodological terms, 27 interviews were conducted with the main actors involved in the PNAE (cooperatives of family farmers, municipal managers, school directors and officials, representatives of Emater, CAPA, CAE and COMDER). The field survey data were collected between September 2015 to January 2017 and were analyzed using the Content Analysis methodology. Among the main results, we verified the hypothesis that, initially, the participation of purchases of family agriculture in school feeding encountered resistances of public managers of the city hall, managers of school meals in schools and the cooperatives of family farmers. The formal and informal norms, as well as the institutional environment, had limitations for the insertion of family agriculture in school feeding. However, over the years, an institutional arrangement was established, led by social mediators, which made institutional learning faster and favored the establishment of new institutions based on dialogue and trust.