Mel e cidadania: estudo comparativo sobre a produção cooperada do mel no Semiárido da Bahia e Norte de Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: CORREIA, Maria da Conceição Nogueira
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UNIFACS
• Texto Completo: http://teste.tede.unifacs.br:8080/tede/handle/tede/472
• topic: Modo de produção capitalista; Cooperação; Economia Solidária; Cidadania; Desenvolvimento Local Sustentável; Ciências Sociais Aplicadas

The theme of this study is the cooperative production of honey as an instrument for sustainable local development and the consequent improvement of the quality of life of beekeepers. Beekeeping is an activity that can be considered strategic for meeting the three requirements of sustainability – the economic, the social and the ecological one-but mostly due to its ability to generate income and occupation and become an alternative to social and productive inclusion. In this way, considering it as presupposition that it stimulates the cooperation of beekeepers and beekeeping companies in the collective construction of a new reality, we reflect upon what extent a production cooperative form can provide conditions for the processes of interaction, coordination and management, with a focus on emancipative citizenship in collective well-being and sustainable local development. The main objective of this research was to verify the existence of forms of cooperative production and analyze to what extent such cooperation contributes to the transformation of reality of beekeepers. Thus, we have studied the situation of this process in the northeastern region of Bahia (Semi-arid), with reference to the model developed in the Cooperatives of beekeepers and comparing them with the reality of three associations of beekeepers in Northern Portugal. The study was carried out on the basis of qualitative and quantitative research and the case study method. We conclude that in both countries there are cooperative processes of work at different levels of development in different associations and cooperatives, which enable income generation. From the Beekeepers surveyed, most of them are micro-producers, who produce quantities below the minimum threshold of economic viability, what hinders cooperation. Production cooperative processes contribute to environmental sustainability, but, for most beekeepers this activity still does not provide economic sustainability. Public policies, in Bahia, have focused on the creation of structure capable of ensuring the quality of honey production and there are investments with a view to insert the beekeepers in such activity. However, they do not bring conditions for economic sustainability and these beekeepers have no way to reinvest and enlarge their undertaking, continuing as micro-producers carrying out the activity as a complementary one. We have pointed out some alternatives to significant changes in the reality of the apiculture sector.