Access to land of family farmers

analysis of collective action in Northern Coast of Uruguay

Abstract

The transformations that have occurred in recent years in Uruguay have challenged the State to find adequate tools for the application of policies and differentiated support to family farmers. One strategy has been the promotion of associative processes, promoted with ministerial programs from the General Directorate of Rural Development (DGDR), and from the National Institute of Colonization (INC), for collective access to land. In order to understand the collective action processes of family farmers in the north coast of the country, the experiences of collective access to INC lands in Artigas, Salto, Paysandú and Río Negro were identified and analyzed. The research included the review of secondary sources and a field survey through interviews with qualified informants and referents of each of the experiences. 38 experiences with access to land were identified through two levels of associativity: 27 cases in which the beneficiaries manage a fraction in common, which have been generated exogenously and are in the process of organizational consolidation; and 11 cases that have assets for common use, which have several years of experience, being first-degree organizations with shaped structures. Between both types, contrasting differences are observed in the ways of coordination and construction of collective action, due to common needs and interests to obtain individual and collective benefits.