A silenciosa resistência da produção familiar na região fronteiriça de Cerro Largo no Uruguai.

Abstract

This research analyses the dynamic of family farming in the departamento of Cerro Largo, in Uruguay, especially in the borderline region with Brazil, with the purpose of studying the social, economic and cultural organization of the family production units. The emphasis is placed on the social reproduction strategies of these family farmers. The research places in a context signed by the consequences of modernization and change of the productive structure of the country. One of the consequences of the agricultural policies applied from the decade of 1970 in Uruguay, was the increase of the land concentration, so that, of the means of production, as well as, the strong fall of the number of family farmers. It consolidates a new sector of big land´s owners, but remains live, a group of family farmers that resist to the complete disappearance. Some of the diverse strategies that the family farmers use to remain living and producing in the countryside are: the exercise of pluriactivity, the practice of self-consumption, the supplementary economic profits derivatives of the residence on the borderline geographic space with Brazil, and the public policies.