Sistemas produtivos locais solidários como estratégia de inserção da PEA rural na economia como sujeito da sua historia: estudo de caso no município de Quixadá/CE

Abstract

The development model adopted in Brazil, and especially in the State of Ceará, is still far from being the effective solution to the problems accumulated along centuries of social, economical, political and cultural colonization. Instead, it is the main cause of the bad income distribution occurring in our country. Therefore, it is necessary to make a new reflection on the real meaning of development, by starting with the understanding of the local potentialities and needs of a certain region. This is the concept of integrated and sustainable local development. To apply that concept, it is necessary to change the focus of the current economical approach from the capitalist traditional vision, whose essence is only the economic growth, to a new humanitarian vision concerning the economic activity. That is the solidarity economy, in which the focus is the human development. Being a concept still under construction, the solidarity economy reflects, through its principles, the need for combining efforts in a view opposite to the competition among human beings. Is it a utopia? Some will judge it like that. Others will believe and engage in it, believing that it is possible to construct a new society, a fairer and fraternal one, overcoming the current socio, economical, political and cultural context of Brazil. One the ways to operationalize the endogenous local development is to organize the economic activity of small rural producers through local production systems so as to make them subject of their own histories. Based on that principle, the present work consists of a case study in the municipal district of Quixadá, in the central countryside of Ceará State. The objective was to formulate a development strategy based on policies that contribute to the development of precarious and underdeveloped areas, using as strategy the development of local solidarity production systems formed of local actors based on their potentialities and the local resources.