O financiamento do PRONAF e os indicadores agrícolas das lavouras de subsistência no estado do Ceará

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyze the influence of PRONAF – National Program of Strengthening of Familiar Agriculture on the agricultural pointers: production, planted area and productivity of subsistence farms benefited for the Program in the Ceará State, during the period of 1999 to 2005. The research apllied tabulate and graphical analyses to study the behavior of the avriables and used a model of refression on panel data. The results registered respectively that Ceará State is in the fourth and eighth national position in relation to the number of contracts ans to the sum received from PRONAF. The most benefited subsistence farms by the Program were: cotton, rice, sugar cane, beans, cassava and corn. A comparison with others not benefited farms: banana, chestnut and mamona disclosed that despite the benefit, PRONAF's benefited farms have got an inferior performance to the not benefited ones in relation to the analyzed agricultural pointers. The analysis of the relation between the sum of PRONAF's financing and the agricultural pointers pointed that, for most of the farms, the Program had a negative effect, even a very small one, on the production, planted area and productivity. We concluded that PRONAF's influence in the performance of the agricultural pointers of the subsistence farms in very small and negative in most cases.