EMPTYING AND FRAGMENTATION OF RURAL EXTENSION SERVICES IN BRAZIL: THE CASE OF THE STATE OF RIO DE JANEIRO

Abstract

Brazilian Rural Extension has been marked since its genesis by an intense process of political-ideological dispute. Over the decades, since the first attempt in 1948 in the state of São Paulo, its effective operationalization with the conception of ACAR/MG (Association of Credit and Rural Assistance) in 1949 and its spread to the other states of the federation throughout the fifties of the last century, has been divided between the social function of extensionism and the diffusionism of technological packages. The Green Revolution intensified this dichotomy, pointing to an unpromising future for the social commitment by which the original Rural Extension was guided. With the neoliberal process, the Brazilian State promoted the emptying of the ATER (Technical Assistance and Rural Extension) service, decentralizing, deactivating, scrapping and precarious the public government ATER, reaching the outsourcing of services. The Lumiar Project was the first experience in this sense, inaugurated in 1997 in the State of Rio de Janeiro, it had no future and was deactivated in 2000. With the popular government assuming the central power of the country, the social movements of the countryside rose with more strength and after six years of inactivity, the Rural Extension for agrarian reform settlements took on another guise. The Technical, Economic and Social Advisory (ATES) is presented as a new formula for serving settled families. However, the scarcity of resources in the midst of political and institutional crises culminated in the precariousness of services and the weakening of the program, which was completed in 2014. Brazil was not the only one to suffer from the processes of emptying the State, throughout Latin America the liberalizing wave scrapped and dismantled the State structure to varying degrees. Throughout Latin America, Rural Extension services have also suffered from the reforms implemented by liberal governments. The present study aims to characterize Rural Extension from the analysis of the scrapping and outsourcing of public ATER services, having as a point of analysis the state of Rio de Janeiro, describing the emptying of ATER services in Brazil, from the point of view of the settled families. To this end, we used interviews with semi-structured questionnaires, in addition to documentary analysis of reports and relevant legislation, as analytical methods. In this way, data were obtained that represent the current situation in which Rural Extension is in Brazil, state of Rio de Janeiro. The article is partially based on the research carried out for the thesis entitled Origins and Paths of Rural Extension in Argentina and Brazil: from Developmentalism to Fragmentation, defended at UFRRJ in 2023.