• What is DESER?

• Strategic and Methodological Guidelines

• The public aimed by the work of DESER

• Programs of Work

• Financial backing

In the beginning the activities of DESER were focused more on the subjects related to the agricultural policies, but in the process of structuring and enlarging its activities, DESER started to incorporate a variety of areas of work, related directly to the strengthening of family farming and to the construction of a project of sustainable development with solidarity.

During its history DESER has tried to accomplish with the role of producing analyses on family farming, of justifying the family farmers’ claims, and of qualifying managers and leaders of the organizations, in order to improve their political intervention. In addition, DESER is an entity that tries to enlarge the spaces of democratization of the civil society and the state, formulating and proposing guidelines for government action towards the strengthening of family farming aimed at a project of sustainable development.

As a result of this work, DESER has been recognized as a reference entity on the themes of family farming, and has even been legitimated before government institutions, universities and international organisms.

Strategic guidelines

In all its activities of research, systemization, study, consultantship and policy proposals, DESER will develop its work based on the following orientations and strategic guidelines:

- To reinforce the strategic character of the connection of DESER with the organizations of family farming.

- To contribute to the progress of the public policies favoring family farming.

- To contribute to the implementation of a new development project based on family farming.

- To spread the impacts of its actions over the country.

- To improve the process of institutional and organizational administration.

Methodological Guidelines

In all its activities of research, systemization, study, consultantship and policy proposals, DESER intends to give prominence to the following orientations and methodological guidelines:

- To fasten the link between production of knowledge and advice.

- To network the micro and macro referential data.

- To anchor the proposals of policies directly on information and reference data produced by farmers.

- To deepen the interconnection, integration, diversity of focuses and traverse aspects of the themes.

- To strengthen the networking of partnerships.

In its activities DESER has a privileged public, the organizations and family farmers' entities. At regional and national levels it interacts with the institutions, with democratic organizations of the grassroots, with public and private universities, as well as with state and federal organs and governments. With other areas of Brazil, especially the Northeast, DESER establishes a connection to the organizations as a whole, based on the impact of its work, or on the direct action.

Program 1: Public policies for family farming

Its goal is to contribute for the construction, improvement, follow-up, evaluation and popularization of public policies directed towards the Brazilian family farming, presupposing both the consolidation of the democratization of the State and the social control of these policies by the beneficiaries and their organizations. In this program the monitoring by the DESER will be permanent in relation to the policies in agriculture, welfare, land reform, social management, and territorial development.

Program 2: Systems and networks of family farming

Its goal is to contribute for the consolidation of the systems and existent networks in the Southern region, on several levels. The monitoring of this program by DESER will be constant, in close connection with the South Front of the Family Agriculture, the Southern Forum of the Milk, the FETRAF-SUL/CUT, the Cre$ol System and the ecological farmers’ network Ecovida with participatory certification of products.

Program 3: Family farming production, market and sustainability

Its goal is to support the development of sustainable family farming with contributions for the construction of public policies and the qualified intervention by the organizations of family farmers. In this program the work of DESER will be developed via market analyses, studies of production chains and of fair trade, via the monitoring of international agreements, and the study of ecological models of farming.

Program 4: Institutional development

Its goal is to promote the organizational and institutional improvement of DESER, as well as to systematize the process of administration and institutional development of DESER, assuring its strengthening and contributing to the whole of small farmers’ organizations.

Traverse themes

The traverseness of the themes of gender, generations and cultural diversity is permanently explicit in the activities of DESER, guided by the idea of stimulating the equality of opportunities and of safeguarding differences and diversity.

The following are presently the agencies of international cooperation, organisms and governmental institutions with which the DESER has institutional relationships and is financially connected:

- Interchurch Organization for the Development Cooperation - ICCO: The Netherlands

- Christian Aid: Great Britain and United Kingdom

- German Unions’ Confederation – DGB: Germany

- Canadian agency for the International Development/Fund for Equality of Gender - CIDA/FIG: Canada

- OXFAM International: United Kingdom

- Action Aid: Brazil

- Itaipu Binacional: Brazil/Paraguay

- State Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education of Paraná: Brazil

- Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA)

- Ministry for the Agrarian Development (MDA): Brazil

Deser in the history of the familial agriculture organizations in the south region

Amadeu Antônio Bonato

It was late 70s when unionized opposition started sprawling and getting extremely active in the rural areas. Three factors favoured this process: the beginning of the political opening process in the military regime; the necessity to confront the problems provoked by the conservative modernization model implemented by the government in agriculture; and the action developed by the Church, via the Base Communities and the Pastorals, especially CPT (Pastoral Land Commission) and Assesoar, in Paraná.

The unions that stand out as symbols of this union renovation process are the following: STR of Erechim – RS, STR of Chapecó – SC and STR of Francisco Beltrão – PR, all attained in 1978. Various other unions were rapidly transformed into combative unions having as references these three.

Having unionized oppositions attained success in an articulate manner, the articulation among the unions was a process that was also developed naturally. Such articulation was facilitated by the geographical proximity in which the so-called combative unions were concentrated (Alto Uruguai, in RS; Oeste, in SC; and Southwest, in PR). That is how the following associations emerged: COSAU – Alto Uruguai Union Coordination (Coordination Sindical do Alto Uruguai); West of Santa Catarina Authentic Unions´ Articulation (Articulação dos Sindicatos Autênticos do Oeste Catarinense); Micro 1-A in Southeast Paraná and the Union Opposition (Oposição Sindical), in Paraná.

This dynamic thus articulated became responsible for the organization and leading of important struggles that occurred in that period, such as the NPRs – Rural Promissory Notes (Notas Promissórias Rurais) (especially in the swine trade), in Southwest Paraná; the Swine Plague, in Santa Catarina; the struggle for better prices, the struggle for the land, the struggle against the dams, among others, in the three southern states in the late 70s and early 80s.

The identities among the three states, especially among the three regional offices, concerning their historical formation, culture, agricultural reality, struggles and ecclesiastic roots, made the interstate articulation possible, leading up to the Union Articulation South ( Articulação Sindical Sul) in the early 80s. Immediately after being constituted, the Union Articulation South started aggregating also the unions attained in the states of São Paulo and Mato Grosso do South.

The Union Articulation South had decisive importance in the union and movements struggle and organization in the south region until the late 80s. The following struggles and mobilizations were significative: the struggles for land reform, for monetary adjustment amnesty, for agricultural policy legislation, for emergency credit, for prices, for social security, for health. The organizational advanced also progressed immensely, in union expansion as well as in the emergence of movements, such the the Landless Movement and the Commissions against Dams.

The Union Articulation promoted annual plenary sessions with union representatives and had, in its existing period, five important performing areas: land struggle (land reform and people affected by the dams); waged rural workers; agricultural policy; social security and health; and formative education.

This set of rural workers unions had an important participation in the CUT (Workers Central Union) creation process, in 1983, in the State and in the Regional CUTs. The south region appointed the first Rural Secretary of the national CUT.

In 1985, with the growth in the number of combative unions and the strong demand for coordinator and leadership formation, the coordination of Articulation South negotiated the setting up of a formative school, the Margarida Alves Union School – ESMA. During the four years while it was working, ESMA ran more than fifty 20-day long courses comprising four stages each, capacitating around 1,500 union and rural movement coordinators and leaders.

In 1986, the need to improve unions communication motivated the Articulation South to set up the Popular Radio Project, later denominated ACTIVATION, responsible for capacitating communicators for the radio programs and for the publishing of news reports.

In early 1988, during the Annual Plenary Session of the Union Articulation South, a group of leaders, from unions, rural social movements and social pastorals, organized a debate to create a study and research institution, with the objective to technically subsidise the rural organizations, especially in the field of agricultural policy. The mobilization process was going through a moment of particular intensity, with regular struggles taking place. The debate on agricultural and land issues was starting to gain visibility in the Constitution debate sessions. And the successful experience of the Margarida Alves Union School stimulated the coordinators and leaders. The demand for technical help was clear, especially in the field of agricultural policies. When this situation was made evident, Valter Bianchini, an agronomist engineer that had been dismissed from Emater-PR for his commitment towards the rural workers, was called in to technically coordenate the rendering of the idea concrete.

In April of the same year, the initial debate became reality with relative agility. After having contacted various people and had several meetings, the proposal began its operation and the Union Department of Rural Studies started running, even if informally at the beginning. However, despite counting only on a minimum human resource structure (the technician Bianchini, the secretary Ivone and the assistant Eduardo), the first studies and analyses were published. Meanwhile, the institutional and legal structure of the entity was being discussed.

Even if not being yet officially legal, the first months at DESER were of intensive elaboration, with systematic analyses of the conjuncture in agriculture and agricultural policies. When the foundation session took place, DESER had already published four bulletins.

Finally, on 14 June 1988, a group of 40 representative leaders from Rural Workers Unions and from Social and Pastoral Movements gathered in Curitiba, at DESER foundation Assembly session. Paulo Farina, of Erechim Union, was elected president. Thus, the Union Department of Rural Studies (Departamento Sindical de Estudos Rurais) was officially born. In the Assembly of 1997, it was rebaptized as the Department of Rural Socio-Economic Studies (Departamento de Estudos Sócio-Econômicos Rurais). A week after its foundation, DESER published the document “Agricultural policies: the unproductive root”, in preparation to the IV Paraná Land Pilgrimage, in which it sought to systematize and ground the set of public policy proposals defended by the rural movements.

In September 1988, in Bulletin No. 7, DESER published the one of the greatest achievements of the period, a result of one of the greatest mobilizations and struggles of the rural movements in the late 80s. It was the approval, by the National Congress, of the monetary adjustment amnesty of rural credit debts for mini, small and medium producers.

With the promulgation of the Federal Constitution (4 October 1988), the battle moved on to regulamentation aspects. For the union movement, relying on technical support for the studies and elaboration, two aspects were fundamental: the agricultural law and the social security law.

The years of 1989 and 1990 were dominated, on the one hand, by the debate on the formulation of the agricultural law, with endless debates, seminars and the production of a historical textbook, derived from arduous DESER elaboration with the proposals from the CUT union movement. Many of those proposals continue to be valid until today.

On the other hand, the electoral race process became the word of the day, marked by a clear dispute between two projects: the neoliberal, represented by Collor de Mello, and the popular democratic, represented by Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. The popular sectors, with the participation of DESER technicians, embraced the elaboration of the proposals of the democratic project for agriculture, and, even after defeat, in the control process, through the Parallel Government. It was an extremely intense moment of proximity with the late José Gomes da Silva, who had already been widely recognized nationally, at INCRA, in 1985-86, with the National Plan of Land Reform.

The years of 1989 and 1990 were equally marked by deep changes in the organizational process and organizations’ articulation process. The Union Articulation South went through a profound crisis, which provoked its total desarticulation. On the one hand, the growth and strengthening of MST, expanding its operation to other states and creating its own organization channels independently from the unions, potentialized the movement´s autonomy. On the other hand, the combative union movement coined a CUT identity. The Central started being their effective reference in conceptions and actions, potentialized especially by the creation of DNTR – National Department of CUT Rural Workers (Departamento Nacional dos Trabalhadores Rurais da CUT) and DETRs/CUT – State Departments of CUT Rural Workers (Departamentos Estaduais dos Trabalhadores Rurais da CUT), in 1989 and 1990. The differences and divergences between the Landless Movement and the Union Movement began to be made more explicit.

Still at the beginning of 1989, DESER elaborated the historical textbook “Advances of Capitalism in the Rural Areas”, which became a classic for the debate on the logic of the development of agriculture, with the following conclusion:

“The strategy for the rural areas, today, has to start with the recognition of the structural heterogeneity of its social forces, which consist of waged rural workers, capitalized familial producers and impoverished small producers. Although the predominance of one or another of these forces is expressed, at first, at the regional level, with the advance of industrialization in agriculture, this heterogeneity consolidates itself and forms the difficult context in which the unification of the struggles in the entire Brazilian rural areas must be sought. At the same time, with the growing integration between agriculture and agroindustrial and finantial capital, the agrarian issue resolution is not anymore a sectorial question and it must be put into context with the structural alternatives for the whole of the country´s economic and political model”.

The beginning of 1990 signaled the end of the first phase in the history of DESER, with the definition of the incorporation of the Margarida Alves Union School (formation) and of Activation (communication) into DESER structure. The technical team was significatively expanded. The thematic of union formation and support, of social politices and communication started to be part of the work dynamic. The terminology “small rural worker”, substituting “small production”, was adopted in a conclusively manner, transfering the focus from production to the people who produce it.

After an interval of regional desarticulation of the union movement, which started to concentrate efforts on the state dynamics, in 1992, a Union Plenary Session rearticulated the south region (at that moment, effectively understood as comprising the three states), constituting the DETRs/CUT South Forum.

DESER, in 1992, elaborated the first edition of “South region in Data”, another milestone in its publications, with a vast selection of information on agriculture in the region.

From 1993, DESER started the third phase in its history, which was marked by the rupture of the south region borders, positioning itself as a research and support entity of national reference. Three themes contributed decisively for this horizon expansion: the Rural Credit, the Mercosul and the Social Security. But what signals this new period is the beginning of the incorporation of the term “familial agriculture” and the debate on an Alternative Project of Development.

The beginning of 1993 was strongly emphasized by recapturing the debate on credit policies. With DESER´s expressed support, the union movement undertook an intense discussion and elaboration effort towards producing a differentiated and subsidised credit proposal for the “small rural workers”. The Forum South Plenary Session that year highlighted the definition of the credit proposal. DESER systematized and grounded the proposal laid out in the textbook “Investment Credit– the struggle worth millions of lives” and the CAMP Video contributed towards the massification of the debate through the video “Our Land”.

Already on the way to the first debates on the definition and affirmation of “familial agriculture”, including their internal economic differences, the proposal suggest subsidies and differentiated rebates for three categories of the (still denominated) small rural workers.

With the approval of the social security legislation (1991) and its normatization in the rural areas (1992), the following years were guided by the debate over its understanding, interpretation and implementation. DESER, due to the successive work that accumulated since the legislation elaboration process, gained visibility as a reference in supporting capacitation and in negotiations.

As for Mercosul, DESER published its first material on the topic already at the end of 1992. The following years were deeply influenced by the debate, positioning DESER as one of the main entities in elaboration and consultancy regarding the impacts of Mercosul on agriculture. Besides, the entity had a decisive role in forming the Coordination of Familial Agriculture Organizations, which gathered organizations from all Mercosul countries.

Likewise, 1993 represented a very clear deepening in the insertion process of the national dynamic for the unions in the south region. The most significative of these insertions was the participation in the II DNTR Conference and in the I DNTR Plenary Session, in which the union movement of the region exerted an important role, with fundamental consequences – positive and negative – in the following years. Two central topics informed the debate in the Conference and in the Plenary Session: the definition for the differentiation of categories in the rural areas (familial rural workers and waged rural workers) and, especially, the definition for the dispute of “inside” CONTAG. This last proposal provoked, soon afterwards, the first participation (in a significantly minoritary composition) in the direction of CONTAG.

One of the results of these nationalization processes was the construction of the national and unified agenda of consorted demands, culminating with the mobilization of the “First Cry for Land Brazil”, in May 1994. The PROVAPE – Small Production Valorization Program (Programa de Valorization da Pequena Production), with the objective to “stimulate the settling of small rural workers in the rural area” (the first rehearsal of the Harvest Plan specific for the familial agriculture), was the main accomplishment of this Cry for Land, constituting itself in the first differentiated credit program.

The deepening of the debate and the accomplishments in the areas of credit and assimilation in the discussions taking place in the academic sectors made DESER one of the first entities to initiate elaboration, studies and discussions on the Development Project and on the conception of familial agriculture. The terminology “familial agriculture” was used, for the first time, in DESER publications, in documents and studies on the field research done on rural areas (incidently, also the first research) “Socio-Economic Diagnosis of Familial Agriculture in Southwest Paraná”, in 1993. The debate around the development project was, for the first time, made public in DESER publications, in mid 1994, with the article “Familial Agriculture and Agricultural Development– some issues to be discussed” (Agricultural Conjuncture Bulletin, 27 July 1994). It is also from this moment onwards that the term familial agriculture started to be common usage in DESER documents. It was, similarly, the beginning of an opening up of the debate, visualizing it from the gender perspective.

“When we think about the construction of a project for the rural areas from the familial agriculture perspective, we are also thinking about the people who constitute this family, in the distribution of work among its members, in its appreciation and in mechanisms that contribute towards overcoming inequalities.”

The political and public expression of this initial debate process occurred, in early 1995, in the Plenary Session of DETRs/CUT Forum South, which centered the issue on the elaboration of the basic orienting guidelines of what was called PADRS – Alternative Project of Sustainable Rural Development (Projeto Alternativo de Development Rural Sustentável) and in the preparation for the south region participation in the Second Cry for Land Brazil. In relation to the Development Project, one of the statements given at the Plenary Session was the following:

“The construction of our Development Project articulates proposals, actions and long, medium and short term policies, searching at each punctual and localized experience the coherence with the utopia/dream we pursue, engaging at each moment the dispute for the hegemony of workers in society”.

Two other movements left their marks on union history and on DESER in 1995: the Second Cry for Land Brazil, resulting in attaining PRONAF and the process of the rural workers from CUT in the composition for the direction of CONTAG, with CONTAG’s affiliation to CUT. From DESER’s point of view, this new national outlook increased DESER visibility in the national scene.

The composing structure at CONTAG, materialized in the board of directors elections in the VI Conference in 1995, through which “CUT attained hegemony at CONTAG” (evaluation from the coordination of the DETRs Forum South, on 09 May 95), brought important consequences (positive and negative) to the union movement in the south region. Firstly, reality later showed that this CUT hegemony had been relative, especially if analized under the perspective of the DNTR conceptions and CUT rural unionism in the south region. Secondly, the dynamic urged by the national action (articulated from CONTAG and still following a CONTAG logic), pratically disrupted the articulation of the CUT sector in the south region (the DETRs Forum South was left without any function). Thirdly, as the same “inside dispute” logic had been triggered in the states, with dynamic and results completely differentiated in each state, there was an evident statitization process in unionism. However, we have to consider the greater national influential capability in the elaborations accumulated by the south region, the rise in pressure and intervention capability on public policies, and the victories attained in this period as highly positive.

From DESER’s point of view, the growth in national demands, especially via CONTAG, preventing a more significative presence of the technical team in the region, also contributed towards stressing the positive and negative aspects the union movement went through in the 1995-97 period.

The option taken by the CUT rural sector to dispute the leadership of the rural union official structures (CONTAG and FETAGs), in the south region, obeyed different strategies in each DETR/CUT.

In Rio Grande do Sul, there was a leadership composition with almost insignificant CUT participation, without dismantling the DETR structure, which continued its work parallel to FETAG action, having actually been one of the first union sectors to raise the debate on union movement intervention in the production organization.

In Paraná, the context in which the composition proposal for the FETAEP leadership was inserted, with the sector called “progressist” (which soon revealed itself as conservative as the right), in a dispute situation against the return of the “conservative right”, obliged the CUT sector to make excessive concessions, among which the almost disarticulation of DETR. The CUT rural unionism was heavily hit, encountering huge difficulties in consolidating itself with its own identity, due to the option adopted in this process.

In Santa Catarina, however, the impossibility to progress into any type of composition obliged to a swift debate and implementation to move on to the creation of union structures differentiated and specifically related to familial agriculture. The aparent setback occurred in Santa Catarina unionism (impossibility of a dialogue towards a composition) was, in reality, what potentialized the creation of a new union identity, specifically related to familial agriculture, embodied in FETRAFESC – Familial Agriculture Workers Federation of Santa Catarina (Federação dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura Familiar de Santa Catarina) and in SINTRAFs – Familial Agriculture Workers Unions (Sindicatos dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura Familiar). The state coordinators dedicated the greater part of their time in efforts towards the construction of this organizational process.

This diversity of union strategies in the region and the dismantling of the DETRs Forum South coordination, conjugated with the focus centred from CONTAG, caused the DESER operation, in the union and technical advisory body for the union movement in the south region, to transform itself in a very disperse presence. It occurred, either in a individualized or/and punctual forma per state, or through CONTAG dynamics. The advisory processes in credit policies (PRONAF), the systematic following up in the gender issues (one of the aspects Paraná managed to show a significative advance, with two researches undertaken: one on “Gender Relations in the production of milk” and the other on “Gender and Associativism”), the following up of the process of FETRAFESC creation, among others, took place in a very state specific manner. Following the CONTAG logic (which also meant act next to the FETAGs), the famous Project CUT-CONTAG took place, in which was actually inserted the whole process of forming coordinators, of the advisory body in social security issues and of Mercosul issues.

This somewhat complex DESER operation logic, on the other hand, pressed for the search for opening consultancy spaces in other fields and for other partners. The work relation with some municipalities grew (the first were Aratiba – RS and Blumenau – SC), potentializing the advance in the debate and elaboration on local development. The relation between DESER and the academic sectors also grew, making it possible a greater deepening in the debate and elaboration on familial agriculture, development and other themes.

The accomplishment of PRONAF – National Program for the Strengthening of Familial Agriculture (Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar) was one of the main achievements of the period. PRONAF, the result of struggles, mobilizations and negotiations from the Cry for Land Brazil, for which the elaborations accumulated in the south region since 1993 had been fundamental, has to be considered by familial agriculture as an accomplishment, despite the countless attempts from the governments to announce it as their own concession. After the various mobilization and pressure processes, initiated in April, and a countless number of negociation audiences, the DESER Bulletin of 21 August 1995 presented the following headline: “Differentiated agricultural policy for familial production: Minister of Agriculture approves differentiated credit for the familial rural workers in agreement with Contag, but FHC Government does not regulate the agreement and makes it clear that the Minister José Eduardo Vieira occupies only a figurative post in his government”. As a result of pressures, PRONAF was instituted the following week, obliging DESER to publish an Extra Bulletin, on 29 August: “Government regulates PRONAF – National Program for the Strengthening of Familial Agriculture (Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar), opening ways for the consolidation of differentiated agricultural policies for the familial agriculture in Brazil”.

Another important achievement in that period, a result of this debate and nationalization process and of struggles, and which counted on the decisive contribuition of DESER advising the CONTAG Secretary of Social Policies, took place in the field of Social Security. Alterations in social security legislation that had occurred in 1994 were making it difficult for the rural workers to access the social security benefits. The Cry for Land Brazil of 1995 and 1996 firmly reinforced their revindications in this area, attaining, in August 1996, the decree of a ministerial statute on the new rules for the concessions of rural benefits.

From the union organizational point of view, in this period from 1995 to 1997, with the organizational nationalization (via CONTAG), the disassembling of the DETRs Forum South, the differentiated statatization of processes in the south region, it is possible to construct some arguments, which can be subjective and even simplistic, but that can contribute towards the understanding of organizational processes that occurred in the following years.

The union composition process with FETAEP and the DETR disassembling, triggered in Paraná, weakened and, in some ways, put an end to the CUT unionism in the state. The influential emergence of other economic organizations, such as the Cresol system of credit cooperativism with familial agriculture representation, came to fill in, in great part, the void left by the union movement. However, the rural workers from CUT in Paraná advanced significately in the debate on gender relations, a theme absent in the official union structure.

The CUT union movement, in Rio Grande do Sul, when composing with FETAG and keeping the DETR structure, on the one hand, put the debate on the organizational issues of a new familial agriculture unionism on hold, but could advance in the issue of production organization. The creation of production cooperatives and, later, the action next to Corlac, demonstrated the strategy of action set going in the state.

The CUT rural sector, in Santa Catarina, which did not get mixed up with the official unionism, demonstrated a clear tendency to specialize itself in the organizational issue. And it dared to advance in a new union model, assuming itself as a “familial agriculture” category, investing in the base organization and in the regionalization process, initially through the regional union nuclei and, later, through the union regionalizations.

In parallel to the organizational dynamic that impelled (and, sometimes immobilized) the union movement, the new organizational force around credit emerged from Paraná. A result of the experiences in the implementation of Rotative Funds in the Southwest and Centre-West of Paraná, with strong support and involvement from Assesoar and Rureco, from 1992 to 1994, the debate around the constitution of a new credit cooperativism model was being administered. In 1995, as a result from the experiments in the rotative funds and in the debate, the CRESOL System of Credit Cooperativism with Solidary Interaction was inaugurated, focusing on a specific public: the familial agriculture. Created in 1995, with the first cooperatives in Dois Vizinhos, Pinhão and Marmeleiro, the System expanded very quickly in the two regions of Paraná.

The creation of the Cresol System ended up being much more than only the concrete answer to a very specific demand (access to credit). It also brought some innovations to the debate on familial agriculture. Among these innovations are the deepening of the debate around the conception of familial agriculture, the debate on the local development and a more explicit debate on the economic (and, obviously, political) familial agriculture organization. With the constitution of the Cresol System, it was created the space for the discussion on the organizational diversity in the interior of the “familial agriculture” public.

The organizational diversity in the familial agriculture got gradually more complex with the emergence of various production cooperatives, especially in the milk chain in Rio Grande do Sul, where the union discussion on the investment in production organization was bigger. The process expansion took place in the following years, with the new state government (in the Olívio Dutra democratic-popular administration) proposition of destatization/cooperativization of CORLAC. The rural social movements assumed the responsibility for managing a great part of the CORLAC System.

As for DESER, the conjuncture of this period opened space for a new phase in its history, whose defining moment takes place in the 1997 Assembly. DESER also took over the responsibility for adapting itself to the new debate dynamic and to the organizational process. Two situations evidenced this new reality and posture: the name change and the clear definition of a target public.

The acronym DESER was altered to stand for “Department of Rural Socio-Economic Studies”, replacing the former “Union Department of Rural Studies”, focusing on two clear tendencies: first, the emphasis on the research and study character that DESER would have to assume with greater tenacity; and, in second place, the expansion of the consultancy and service providing relations considering the whole of the familial agriculture organizations.

Likewise, DESER mission definition clearly and explicitly delineated the DESER operation areas, as a reasearch and consultancy entity focused on “contributing towards the elaboration and implementation of the Alternative Project of Sustainable Development and towards the strengthening of familial agriculture and its organizations” (Minute of DESER Ordinary Assembly, 1997).

The new phase of DESER operation, from 1998 to 2002, adapting itself to the new conjuncture and to the new demands from organizations can be characterized by the following features: strong focus on the mission to value familial agriculture and its organizations having as a permanent horizon the alternative model of sustainable and solidary development; significative participation in research and elaboration around some strategic themes; expansion towards new themes, including those beyond the economic field, provoked by the assumed conception of development; strong relation and interation with the whole of the familial agriculture organizations; greater focus on the realization of systematic activities; interaction with governmental organs and bodies for the development of studies and research; consolidation of DESER as a national reference.

From the familial agriculture organizations´ point of view, the beginning of the period 1998-2002 was witness to the triggering of a dynamic process of organizational quality leap. On the one hand, the strong sensation of the fragileness of the CUT union movement, marginalized by its coligation defeat in the CONTAG Conference in 1998, found itself obliged to retake the perspective of reorganization while south region, starting to renew the Forum South. (Around 1995, the DETRs Forum South started to be called CUT Rural Workers Forum South, with the perception of an articulation of the Unions and not only of the DETRs). On the other hand, there was a clear feeling of the strong potencial of the new emerging familial agriculture organizations, such as the Cresol Credit Cooperativism System, the production cooperativism in the milk chain (CORLAC) and, a little later, the Milk Cooperative System of the Southwest of Paraná (SISCLAF) and the milk cooperatives of the West of Santa Catarina (ASCOOPER), the network of commercialization of familial agroindustries of the West of Santa Catarina (UCAF), the Solidary Certification System, through the EcoVida Network, which potentialized a strong articulation among the ONGs operating with emphasis on agroecology and between them and other associative organizations of familial agroecological rural workers.

The Union Movement, following the logic to strengthen and structure itself regionally, established, initially, two clear strategies: one, which went through the organization of massive meetings, the Familial Agriculture Meetings, which took place anually; the other, which articulated a massive formative and capacitation process for base leaderships, through the Solidary Land Project.

The familial agriculture need to constitute itself, while south region, as a social and political actor recognized regionally and nationally, capable to negotiate and intervene in public policies, demanded the necessity to articulate several organizations, once this space could be occupied neither by the union movement (due to its fragileness in the region and the rupture with Contag), nor by the other emerging organizations, CRESOL and CORLAC (due to being still in their first steps). The constitution of the Familial Agriculture South Front, in 1999, a proposal emerged during the III Familial Agriculture Meeting, in Francisco Beltrão, was the format in which the agglutination of the existing forces in the field of familial agriculture was put together.

Without a doubt, the South Front represented an organizational gain and advance, starting to be responsible for the negotiations of the agendas next to the federal and state governments, promoting debate seminars (familial agroindustrialization, Milk Regulation, among others), for the realization of the IV and V Familial Agriculture Meetings, in Esteio and Chapecó, respectively (the three first Meetings, in Chapecó, Erechim and Francisco Beltrão had been the responsibility of the union movement) and for countless mobilizations that took place in that period.

Simultaneously to the process of articulation and development of the Familial Agriculture South Front, each organization sought to advance in its self-strengthening.

CRESOL quickly expanded its single cooperatives, including to the states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul and in its recognition next to the federal public bodies responsible for the financial and cooperativist issues, particularly Banco Central, Banco do Brasil, BNDES and others.

CORLAC, daringly facing the milk multinationals (particularly PARMALAT), quickly advanced, from the political as well as the economic point of view, promoting articulation and expansion of single cooperatives in various micro-regions in the state.

The huge advance on the debate on agroecology and on the constitution of agroecological production initiatives (production, transformation and commercialization), individual and collective, equally contributed towards the emergence and strengthening of the EcoVida Network of solidary certification.

The implementation of the Solidary Land Project, from 1999, having as priority action the capacitation of leaderships with certification in primary teaching, but aggregating activities of political-unionist formation of coordinators and activities of capacitation and stimulus to agroecology and agroindustrialization (the latter, together with the “Rural worker to Rural worker” Project), without a doubt, gave new life to the unionist dynamic. The discussion aiming at the constitution of a regional organization specific to familial agriculture union movement consolidated itself and, in 2001, the I Familial Agriculture Union Conference created the Federation of Workers in Familial Agriculture of the south region.

The creation of FETRAF-SOUTH/CUT had, along the organizational process that followed, a double effect. On the one hand, it represented the daring in advancing the construction of a new unionism of familial agriculture category explicit representation, despite the current union legislation (or, at least despite the official interpretation of the law), what again placed the union organization of the south region in national evidence. However, on the other hand, it provided the reduction of the importance of the South Front, for the whole of the actions from the organizations, and especially from FETRAF-SOUTH/CUT, started to be directed towards its self-strengthening. And, unquestionably, the several organizations strengthened themselves individually. The Familial Agriculture Convoy with Lula, in July 2001, the V Familial Agriculture Meeting, in July 2002 (even if sponsored by the Front organizations), the positive results from the mobilization due to the draught, in 2002, among other actions, thrusted forward towards the political accrediting of FETRAF. For the CRESOL System, its quick expansion in the whole of the south region, the acredditing of the System in the positive negotiations next to the several public organs and the constitution of the National Forum of Solidary Credit Cooperativism, besides the positive impacts next to the rural workers, were some of the fundamental items for their strengthening. For the CORLAC System, its affirmation in the Rio Grande do Sul milk industry market, the mobilizations around the Resolution 56 on the quality of milk and the advance in the regional articulation of the milk cooperatives, with the creation of the Familial Agriculture Milk South Forum, the was also highly positive.

This new context will certainly provoke, in the next period, a new profile for the process of articulation of the familial agriculture organizations in the south region.

It was within this rich context of the organizational process that DESER sought to insert itself, with the responsibility for being the research, study, technical and political consulting entity for the whole of, and for the diversity of, organizations.

The demands of the period required from DESER a significative expansion of its thematic operations. New areas of work emerged, beyond the historical operations in the field of agricultural policy, social policies, productive chains, market analyses, mercosul, local development. DESER found itself obligated to operate in the field of education and profissional qualification, solidary socio-economy, international commerce and in social insertion policies. DESER participation in the Solidary Land Project (especially in the programs of “Primary Teaching” and “Sustainable and Solidary Management”), as a partner entity to FETRAF-SOUTH/CUT, in the “Rural worker to Rural worker” Project, in the Vale do Ribeira Micro Financing Project, in REBRIP – Brazilian Network for the Integration of the Peoples, among others, potentialized, besides the new consultation dynamic (more systematic, permanent and consistent), the new elaboration dynamic, from a space of concrete operation.

DESER, in that period, advanced considerably in the realization of rural research, accrediting itself, even more, as the study and analyses elaboration entity, in the fields of Social Security, Credit (PRONAF, in particular), Local Development, Social Capital, Microfinancing, Rural Youth, Technical Assistance, Agricultural Systems, Productive Chains (in particular the milk and tobacco chains), Familial Agriculture economic organizations, Unionism, Sustainable Development conception and own conception of Familial Agriculture. The rich elaboration background was, no doubt, determinant in the launching of many of its technical staff who ended up being called to contribute towards the elaboration of the candidate Lula’ Government Program for agriculture and, later, to take over public posts in the newly elected government.

The period required from DESER a more systematic performance in the organizational consultation next to the main familial agriculture organizations, following up and consulting with Familial Agriculture South Front, FETRAF-SOUTH/CUT, CRESOL-BASER, CORLAC (very much linked to the realization of the Milk Research in Rio Grande do Sul) and Milk Familial Agriculture Forum (more recently).

Lastly, another dynamic perceived in the period was the expansion and consolidation of the relations and partnerships with other social actors, such as the public sectors (via agreements for the realization of research and studies), universidades, ONGs from other regions of the country and international institutions.

DESER is now, in the middle of 2003, arriving at its 15 th anniversary, in a journey that promoted a huge diversity of processes and dynamisms, lived different moments and phases, faced permanent challenges. Unquestionably, the new challenges for the familial agriculture organizations and, consequently for DESER, require from it a new moment of renovation, a new leap in its operational format. DESER Assembly, on the 15 August, will certainly be a new landmark in the advancement of its historical construction.

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Departamento de Estudos Sócio-Econômicos Rurais
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