Participação comunitária no processo de tomada de decisões no contexto da comercialização agrícola. O caso do distrito de Manjacaze

Abstract

The present work has as its theme “community participation in the decision-making process, in the context of agricultural commercialization”. The objectives are to analyze the articulation and influence of communities in the decision-making process in the period 1987-2000, in the context of agricultural marketing, in Manjacaze, and to identify the experiences of community involvement in agricultural marketing at the district level. In the theoretical analysis, two perspectives of (dialogue analysis. The perspective of observation and the participative perspective and we adopted the model of rational choice to explain the dynamics of individuals in carrying out collective action. A qualitative methodology was followed, based on semi-structured interviews. The fieldwork was carried out in the district of Manjacaze and the sample included only employees of the local administration, institutions linked to agricultural marketing, producers, storekeepers, local leaders and traders. The results of the field show that the communities present a weak intervention capacity in the decision-making process in matters related to agricultural commercialization. They are struggling with the lack of aggregation mechanisms (associations, cooperatives) that would act as a link with the local administration. It was possible to verify the existence of traditional forms of aggregation, only that they do not have the capacity to exert influence at the government scale. As a key recommendation, the need for greater dissemination of the importance of associations, the granting of financial and technical support as well as the use of traditional forms of aggregation as a basis for the formation of associations with the capacity to intervene at the governmental level, ie , these practices rooted in communities should be enhanced.