Abstract

RODRIGUEZ-SPERAT, Ramiro  and  EMANUEL-JARA, Cristian. Efficiency and Family Farming: more than a century of debate without enough answers. agric. soc. desarro [online]. 2018, vol.15, n.4, pp.595-617. ISSN 1870-5472.

Family farming is undergoing a moment of growing legitimacy in Latin America, to the degree that many governments have implemented a series of measures that tend to make visible and strengthen the sector. However, the productive efficiency of this type of agriculture has been questioned in various opportunities by different currents of thought. Consequently, and in light of the expectations present about the sector from multiple political and academic aspects, it would be convenient to review critically the arguments which give it -depending on the case- a higher or lower efficiency in production. Stemming from recovering and allowing a dialogue to take place between classic and contemporary texts that have addressed the issue, directly or indirectly, this study attempts to show that the discussion is not recent, that the authors who have dealt with the theme have made a polysemic use of the concepts involved, that the empirical evidence used to construct the different arguments is vague, and that all these elements have acted in a joint manner to keep the debate open today. Reconstructing and analyzing these arguments is a basic prerequisite to be able to argue in favor of the strategic potential and the formulation of productive (and not only welfare) public policies for the sector.

Keywords : capitalist agriculture; agrarian studies; public policies; peasant production.

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