Public policies for rural development and combating poverty in rural areas
This paper (PDF) by the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) present an evaluation of the public policies in Brazil that are aimed at promoting family farming. Starting with their recent performance in terms of resources and beneficiaries, going through an identification of coverage indicators, and, finally, recovering studies and analyses that assess these policies. Brazil has become a good example of public policies aimed at combating poverty and fostering rural development, or, in other words, promoting family farming. The country has even ‘exported’ some of its policies, notably the Programa Bolsa Família and the Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos (PAA—Food Acquisition Programme). The narratives of the Brazilian success are based, on the one hand, on the performance of such policies, especially when it is estimated from the volume of resources and beneficiaries they encompass. On the other hand, these narratives are also based on the significant improvements in poverty, income and inequality indicators in rural areas of Brazil not to mention the abating of rural–urban migration. Although welfare and social security policies have managed to reduce poverty to some extent, it remains imperatively valid that small farmers need to have their freedoms expanded so that they can go beyond the ‘inevitability’ of urban migration and/or income protection policies.