O PROGRAMA DE AQUISIÇÃO DE ALIMENTOS NO ÂMBITO DO PROGRAMA FOME ZERO: EMANCIPAÇÃO ou COMPENSAÇÃO?

Abstract

The present work focuses on the challenges and possibilities of the Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos (PAA) in the Programa Fome Zero (PFZ) to become real as a policy which enables and motivates emancipatory practices for all the beneficiaries - families in a situation IF food and nutritional insecurity and small farmers and fishermen. According to documents, the PAA is constituted as a structuring policy for the family agriculture and emergency policy for families in social risk. PAA and Solidary Economy are two of PFZ key programs and, due to this, both must be connected in order to make possible emancipatory actions towards its target public. This work, then, as it aims at (i) studying the basic and theoretical purposes of PAA, (ii) understanding how the PAA is becoming viable in the case studied (city of Pelotas), and (iii) verifying is the PAA reaches its goals, tried to point out the challenges and possibilities so that the program can become a possible policy to enable emancipatory practices for all beneficiaries through a concrete articulation with the Solidary Economy, as a potential key for this process. The research is based on a dialectic perspective and was methodogically developed by the use of focus groups, performed at two co-operative societies which sell their products to the PAA: the Lagoa Viva and the Sul Ecológica Co-operative Societies; and also in three institutions which receive and distribute the food provided by the PAA and are from those cooperative societies to the poor families: Base Church Community Peregrinos do Amor , OSC GESCGESTO and Associação Amar: Criança e Família. The results obtained reaffirm the intrinsic ambiguity of the PAA (the compensational and emancipatory actions) which contributes for the empowerment of family agriculture, enabling small farmers to have some income through their work, though it does not overcome the assistance character and focused on the distributional activity. It reaffirms the history of Brazilian public social policies, although its proposal and the intention of those who developed it. At last, it is necessary to cross a long path to reach the condition of the PFZ main axis, in order to strengthen the movement of Solidary Economy in the country