Uma avaliação da capacidade de pagamento de financiamentos em projetos de fruticultura no PRONAF em Pelotas/RS

Abstract

The Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar (PRONAF) represents one of the most important conquests of social movements in contemporary Brazil. The program was created as the State’s response to the pressures of rural labor movement, carried out since the late 1980s, with the purpose of providing agricultural credit and institutional support to small farmers who were being priced out of the then existing policies and had serious difficulties in remaining in the countryside. Financial support for agricultural activities is correlated with the ability that this sector of the Brazilian economy has to create guarantees and capacity to pay. As funding is granted it is expected the same time reducing risk and default and that the ultimate goals of public policy are achieved. The risk in agricultural financing, through fluctuations in market prices or weather, which directly affect the income of agricultural production units, reinforces the range limit of financial services. The measure of ability to pay used is the ratio of the value of net farm revenue and the amount to be repaid in the contract. The simulation of specific scenarios, first with fixed price and fixed costs in relation to gross income was not sufficient to guide the decision making of funding; the second scenario with fixed price and variable costs was more efficient, but with restrictions with price variation; the latter scenario applied the Monte Carlo Method and this was useful in gauging the decision-making under uncertainty in agricultural prices, contributing to the reduction of default, since the real price that generates the ability to pay the contract is known.