A strategy to streamline agrifood production and marketing arrangements: The case of production with attributes for direct sale in Tupanciretã-RS

Abstract

One of the main dilemmas faced by family farming is the control over the process in which it performs its economic/productive activities. One of the ways in which alternative food systems can be built, as well as their combined effect, to facilitate a sustainable transition, lies in new arrangements that combine production and consumption. Therefore, the business model adopted by small farmers who integrate processing and marketing in agricultural activities is one of the solutions to the difficulties faced. The article advances in this scenario. Using a qualitative approach, we sought to verify these initiatives adopted by family farmers in Tupanciretã-RS, who are located in a productivist context, coordinated by agents linked to global value chains, privileged by high productive factors, thus producing one of the largest soybean plantations in Rio Grande do Sul state, identified as the capital of soybeans. However, a series of economic/productive activities operated by farming families make heterogeneous a context marked by socioeconomic homogeneity in the municipality. Thus, one of the guidelines that family farmers adopt to increase added value is domestic production and market orientation. In its economic-productive strategies, the agro-industrialization of products into final foods employs peculiar techniques inherent to the traditions and heritage of the farmers who produce them. This translates into the adopted method, condensed into a food with attributes linked to colonial, homemade, and artisanal aspects, which is dissociated from the imperative specialized and intensified production mode that is practiced in the agricultural sector of the municipality.