Is there a new peasant agriculture project ? An analysis based on brazilian and french examples

H. Mendras has taught us that the peasant category was meant to disappear when the peasant societies would disappear. He has well demonstrated this tendency in the European case. However, new evolutions in the social movements up-dating the peasant identities in Europe, Latin America and Africa have brought this question to the present debate. The paper intends to present a comparative view of the new family agriculture in the Northeast of Brazil and France, considering the resistance, roots and peasant values. The Brazilian Northeast family farming is characterised by the permanence of an irregular and partial relation to diversified markets, as well as, also, by the modernisation or the resurgence of peasant redistribution relations and reciprocity practises. In France, the peasant trade unions' claims is more linked to value the products quality and local identity, although the peasant society does not endure any more. Thus, the integration to segmented markets more and more qualified or still subsidised, questions the future extension and generalisation of the European peasant model. On the contrary, the Brazilian Northeast has kept peasant communities which are capable of develop regional and local collective projects. Besides the economic integration of the competitive family farming to the markets, there is an alternative for territorial and social integration through pluriactivity and multifunctionality of the agriculture. The challenge is to mobilise and negotiate public policies guided by the modern peasant agriculture, considering the collective attributes and human values, insted of social assistance to poor rural families. (Résumé d'auteur