Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

In the last decades there has been a growth in agribusiness and food production on a large scale in Brazil, which imposes barriers to the development of small rural producers. Several of these producers organize themselves linked to social movements such as the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST). This organization claims for better conditions for the production and sale of products for farmers in socially vulnerable situations, so that they remain in the rural area. One of the alternatives proposed by these groups of small farmers to survive in the market and obtain a minimum family income is to establish a relationship with final consumers, in order to achieve visibility to their political agendas. These initiatives follow a trend of transformation in the markets and the appearance of short circuit exchanges, among other reasons, for environmental issues. This is the case at the Elizabeth Teixeira settlement, located in Limeira-SP, which implemented a conscious consumption group, in which farmers deliver baskets of organic products to local consumers. The methodology consists of analyzing questionnaires applied to the group’s consumers. We seek to identify the extent to which these consumers know and support the political claims of farmers. The importance of this research stems from the lack of Brazilian case studies focusing on the support networks for social movements and their relationship of proximity or distance with the movement’s political project.