The state and the public policies that made family farming an important agent of development

Abstract

The struggle organized by small rural producers and rural workers, for participation in the State budget, throughout the second half of the 20th century, triggered the institutionalization of the category “family agriculture”, encompassing culturally diverse groups, which has made rural development diffuse. The objective of this article is to show how this institutionalization, its characteristics and challenges faced the implementation of public policies oriented to a category of social agents so different in the cultural, social, economic and territorial scope. For this, the research uses the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu’s reflective sociology, regarding his studies on the State, with the intention of identifying the symbolic struggles in the field of power, with the institutionalization of the category family agriculture as product, placing several social groups in the national development agenda. The results show that, although it has formed a set of regulations and public policies aimed at family agriculture, the diversity of this category brings the need for the participation of factors other than federal public policies, evidencing the unequal distribution of symbolic capital to heterogeneous family farming.