"Vivemos desta renda": a agricultura familiar de Santo Cristo-RS e as complexidades da intensificação produtiva do leite

Abstract

This dissertation is part of the debates about the transformations in the contemporary rural world, discussing the process of technological modernization and productive specialization experienced by family farmers, through the ethnographic research carried out in the community of Vila Sírio, city of Santo Cristo, state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city of Santo Cristo is currently the largest dairy producer in Rio Grande do Sul and one of the main ones in Brazil (IBGE, 2015), whose production began to stand out in the early 1990s, based on family farming. Characteristics such as polyculture and low levels of productivity are commonly attributed to family farming, which in the case of Santo Cristo have been changing, with specialization in milk production and productivity gains, with the increasing introduction of technological inputs (milking machines, tractors, Genomic selection, chemical inputs, and among others), making family farm a paradigmatic case of competitiveness in milk production (SOUZA, 2011). From the study of this case, I try to describe this process of technological modernization, discussing its implications for the reproduction of the families involved in the dairy activity, privileging for this the narrative of the farmers.