Avaliação do impacto do projeto hora de plantar sobre a sustentabilidade dos agricultores familiares da microrregião do Cariri (CE): o caso do milho híbrido

Abstract

The Projeto Hora de Plantar (Project Time to Plant), was structured from the program Arrancada da Produção (Production Growth), in 1987, is the subsidized distribution to family farmers of the genetically selected seed, in order to ensure greater productivity and the need to adapt to climatic conditions rustic Northeastern. With integration of actions to promote the sustainability in the various Sustainable Rural Development Plans implemented after 1995, the Projeto Hora de Plantar is in addition to increased income and increase core productivity of beneficiaries, other objectives, such as: encouraging the adoption of agricultural practices for coexistence with the semi-arid and support to the forestation and reforestation through the distribution of native and exotic plant species. With the Programa do Milho Híbrido (Hybrid Maize Program), created in 1999, the distribution of hybrid maize seed becomes part of the list of cultures promoted by Projeto Hora de Plantar. In 2015, 2,227 tons of seeds were distributed and benefited producers 75,880 Brazil, representing about 65% of the seeds distributed by the project. The present study has a main objective to evaluate the impact promoted by the Projeto Hora de Plantar about the sustainability of the agricultural producers of hybrid maize farmers from the Cariri Microregion from Ceará by building an Index of Sustainability of Production (ISP), which covers the economic, environmental and technological dimensions. Using primary source data, obtained through 210 semi-structured questionnaires, being 90 to beneficiaries and 120 producers not to beneficiaries of the programme, implemented in the municipalities of Barbalha, Nova Olinda and Santana do Cariri, located in the Cariri Microregion. The comparison between treatment group (beneficiares) and control(not beneficiaries) was performed by the application of the technique of propensity score matching. The results show that the Index of Sustainability of Production among the beneficiaries is significantly higher than that of non-beneficiaries. In relation to the components of the ISP, the beneficiaries showed statistically significant superiority in economic and technological dimensions. With regard to the environmental dimension, no statistically significant differences were found between the groups. The sensitivity analysis of the model confirms the robustness of the results estimated. Therefore, it is concluded that the beneficiaries of the project family farmers time to plant presented a higher level of agricultural sustainability in relation to non-beneficiaries.