25 years of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension at the Family Agriculture Department

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the changes in technical assistance and rural extension (ATER) for Family Agriculture throughout 25 years, in the area of the national Agro-Industry State Department. It describes how technical assistance evolved from work with small groups focused towards "relief for rural poverty", with the aim of improving income by means of the self-consumption production, diversification and sale of excess goods, towards an intervention with an integral territorial focus which included the approach of universal individual rights and a strong accompaniment of organizations. Also, it evidences the difference between proposed institutional goals and those that were really achieved, which can be explained through the lack of a well-defined long-term strategy and the constant administration changes. The continuity of actions is, in turn, an almost exclusive result of what the technical teams working the territory have managed to maintain. For the elaboration of this article, information was utilized which was generated by the very executors as well as external evaluators; also, academic studies and interviews with qualified informants were used.