Caminhos para a convivência com o semiárido: agricultura camponesa e segurança alimentar no sertão de Quiterianópolis – Ceará

Abstract

Peasant agriculture, in the backwoods of Ceará, in recent years, has improved its quality by means of distributing social technologies of living with sim-arid applied to its territory. In this context the peasantry we know in Brazil is characterized by the different social and production relations developed in there. Fated to disappear by many, despite political, economic and social adversities, the peasantry develops ways to overcome them in the beginning of the XXI century. In order to point out the survival strategies of the peasants of the semi-arid of Ceará, this research investigates, in the scope of the qualitative research of participants, the experiences developed by rural farmers of the Quiterianópolis, in Ceará. Examining the theorists who discuss about the peasantry in Brazil and abroad, we search, by means of particular look, the understanding of its nuances. The fieldwork was significant because it presents the social technologies of living with the semi-arid and their results for the people involved, providing life quality such as food and nutritional security, both considered fundamental aspect of this process. Finally, we verify that the peasantry not only keeps alive in present time but brings back ancient knowledge, allying then to the social technologies, adding an aspect of innovation, connecting tradition to modern times as a mechanism of perpetuating peasants’ live.