Technical and economic profile of production of irrigated coconut in state of Ceará

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the technical and economic profile of coconut production in the irrigation area of Distrito de Irrigação Curu-Paraipaba, in state of Ceará, Brazil. The importance of this study is due to the fact that the referred project of irrigation has existed for over three decades and currently has about 679 rural establishments managed by small producers. This study used a sample size equal to 50, and as tools of analysis, the study used descriptive and tabular analysis of the collected data, besides the techniques of factor and cluster analysis. It was reported that all establishments showed positive gross and net margin, but the level of income earned was considered low, taking as reference the variable profit. Then technical and economic factors were identified. When the factor scores were got, three groups of rural producers were identified; thus, this demonstrated differences at the technical and economic level between the family farmers interviewed. It was understood that the small producers interviewed have difficulty regarding working capital to operate their agricultural practices, and that their access to lines of credit, such as Pronaf, could be an economically important alternative. The access to rural credit is made difficult when the producers do not have the deed documents of the properties, so the main suggestion of a public policy to the Curu-Paraipaba project is the implementation of an extensive process of land regularization, without cost to the irrigation farmers that originated from there.