Agricultura familiar no Ceará: evidências a partir do censo agropecuário de 2017

Abstract

The objective of the research was to evaluate the profiles of agricultural production in family (UAF) and non-family (UAP) agricultural units in Ceará, based on the 2017 Agricultural Census. The survey also evaluates the created regions by Cearense Foundation of Meteorology and Water Resources (Funceme) for the State. The hypothesis is: the heterogeneities detected in the production of the regions should be due to climatic differences. In order to test this hypothesis, productivity indexes for UAF and UAP were created to gauge the synergies between rainfall and productivity. Overall, the results reinforced the importance of agricultural activities in both UAP and UAF as employers of the workforce in rural areas of the State, which contributes to reducing problems arising from disorderly emigration. In this regard, the UAF showed to have a greater capacity for absorbing this workforce, especially in the region with the greatest climatic difficulties in the State: Central and Inhamuns region. It can also be seen from the research evidence that, as a general rule, the performance of UAFs is better in vegetable production and UAPs in livestock production. The productivity index created in the study, which brings together rainfall and plant and livestock productivity, confirmed the work’s hypothesis that climate is an inducing factor for agricultural production in the semi-arid region. In this way, public policies that promote rural development have to take into acount these differences that prevail in the State.