Abstract

CRAVIOTTI, Clara  and  PALACIOS, Paula. Family farmers' strategies in adverse socio‐productive contexts: Family fruit production in the northeast of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Trab. soc. [online]. 2013, n.20, pp.259-279. ISSN 1514-6871.

This article analyzes the strategies deployed by family farmers in a non prototypical area of the Pampas region where fruit production has developed. This labour-intensive activity mainly oriented to the domestic market, which implies local linkages and a seasonal labour market, has been experiencing a process of withdrawal in deep contrast with the expansion of soybeans and its associated socio-technical model. The latter is based on a standardized technology package, as well as on flexible forms of articulating production factors, which include a low labour component. The article adopts the perspective that practices include pre-reflexive and routine activities, as well as strategic actions that can be conceptualized as the ways through which people try to solve their problems and organize their resources within the limits they face, and where the range of available options and their very perception is conditioned by larger structures and the position occupied in the social space. The practices deployed by fruit growers at the productive level and their allocation of family labour are analyzed, aiming at their understanding from their own frames of meaning, and reflecting on their persistence as producers within the broader processes taking place in the territory.

Keywords : Family farming; Persistence strategies; Fruit production; Pampas region.

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