A importância do cooperativismo agropecuário na mesorregião nordeste paraense: um estudo de caso da cooperativa agropecuária D’Irituia.

Abstract

Brazilian economy is turned to agriculture, but we can notice that although the policies’ attempts to improve familiar agriculture and access to credit, large producers have a bigger subsidy, leaving the smaller ones, more related to familiar agriculture, without appropriate accessibility. An option to Brazilian farmers would be the creation of agricultural cooperatives, but this tool is little known by the producers. Many familiar farmers have little knowledge about their functions, advantages, features and positive impacts that cooperatives can provide to their lives. By these means, this paper aimed to analyze the agricultural cooperatives influence over farmers from Irituia – D'Irituia as an option to small and medium producers in socioeconomic development. To conduct this work, the qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were used through the application of questionnaires to analyze and understand the social framework of the familiar farmers in the cooperative, aiming to comprehend which impacts happened in this socioeconomic situation since the moment they became cooperated. Another step in this study was done through the use of descriptive research, using open interviews with the same sample of cooperators in which was realized the questionary. Basing on these statements it was possible to understand their main objectives when starting their participation in the cooperative, just as comprehend the impacts resulted by it in their lives. After the data analysis it was possible to see that agricultural cooperatives to producers from Irituia – D'Irituia has brought improvements to its participants, not only in their quality of life but also in their working condition. This way, the cooperative has proved to be an alternative to small and medium producers.