Family farming and economic cooperation: the emergence and decline of agrarian condominios in the Southern Brazil

Abstract

In this work the authors analyze the Condominios as an example of economic cooperation adapted to the characteristics of family farming in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. The process of modernization of Brazilian agriculture that took place in the 1960s and 1970s under the military governments is analyzed with special attention to the selective and exclusionary effects this process had on the small farmers, along with a study of the development of cooperativism. The consolidation of macro-cooperative models demonstrated reflect the interests and characteristics of modernized, export-oriented agriculture. The origins and development of Condominios as an alternative to the large agricultural cooperatives in Santa Catarina are also addressed. Finally, the authors discuss these models of association, which are adapted to the characteristics of small producers, and place them in Chayanov´s views on family farming and the peasantry.