O impacto da assistência técnica e extensão rural para os agricultores familiares pobres: o caso do Programa Dom Hélder Câmara II

This study evaluates the impact of technical assistance and rural extension provided by the Dom Hélder Câmara Project (PDHC II) in the Brazilian semiarid region, which aimed to reduce the poverty levels and inequalities in the region, qualifying family farmers to develop sustainable production and encouraging the replication of good agricultural practices. Using the propensity score matching method, 16 different indicators of the assisted families and the control group were analyzed, involving monetary and nonmonetary incomes. The results indicate that the program was successful in benefiting poor or extremely poor families in this region, providing technical assistance and rural extension and, for a fraction of them, access to the Rural Funding Program. In addition, PDHC II achieved its objectives of providing an increase in agricultural production and in the income of the beneficiaries, with an even more prominent impact among those who received remittances from funding program. It can be concluded that technical assistance and rural extension were effective, benefiting poor family farmers in the Brazilian semiarid region and having a larger impact when associated with productive funding resources.