Regional differences in family farming and in the use of rural credit

Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate the evolution of family farming into the Brazilian agriculture and its access to rural credit, especially to the Pronaf. Specifically, we seek to highlight some regional differences in family farming’s access to rural credit and to the main Pronaf programs. Using data from the 2006 and 2017 Agricultural Censuses, organized into tables, the paper concludes that family farming is not equally distributed across the national territory and one of its main modernization support programs, Pronaf, mainly benefits the “richest” family farmers located in the most developed regions of the country, such as the South, perpetuating the existing regional inequalities within this category. And this seems aquisito be enhanced by the activities of credit cooperatives that operate intensively in the southern region of the country.