A constituição de uma novidade organizacional no Sul do Brasil: avanços e limites da participação da agricultura familiar

The negative consequences of the agriculture modernization have induced family farmers, researchers and social mediators to construct rural development actions that deviate from the hegemonic model. In this scenario, the “novelties”, or improvements in the rearrangements of relations between society and technology, are occurring constantly, not devoid of limitations. This paper aims to discuss the potentialities and limits of the processes of construction of an organizational novelty in the North Coast of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, focusing on the participation of groups of family farmers. The research included documentary research, observational participation and semi-structured interviews with family farmers and social mediators working in the region between mid-2013 and the first quarter of 2016. The results show that the consolidation of organizational novelty ensures the socioeconomic reproduction of groups of family farmers, rescues customs, strengthens social ties and reconnects these farmers to nature. However, although this new and deviant process is causing significant transformations in the region, the appropriation of new sociotechnical procedures by only a few social groups means that others, especially those composed of socioeconomically vulnerable family farmers, do not participate in the actions.