The Public Policy of Support to the Family Farming in Biodiversity Conservation in Brazil

Abstract

Initially, this work deals with the concept of multifunctionality of agriculture and discusses the internationaldebate around this issue, which sets two groups of countries in opposite sides. Then, this worklists the roles played by the family farming in Brazil, defending the view point that Brazil does meet theagriculture environmental role, by allocating subsidized funds to family farmers in two Lines of creditfrom the National Program for the Strengthening of Family Farming – Pronaf, dedicated, mainly, toagroecology and agroforestry. These lines of credit focus on the sustainable use of agroecossystems andforestry resources. Through the years of the existing Program its credit policies have shown low performance maybe in spite of the Draconian policies of evaluation/analysis made by the financial analyzers

to approve the projects based on the arguments of lack for models of agroforestry systems productionand also lack for ecological crops systems that show acknowledge technical and financial rates. On theother hand, the projects supported by the Agroforestry and Agroecology Pronaf have shown to be avaluable tool for biodiversity conservation in Brazil, once they incorporate ecological principles basedon the species conservation and restoration of ecosystem functions of natural resources.