A racionalidade administrativa: os sistemas de produção e o processo de decisão-ação em unidades de produção rural

Abstract

This research aims at studying rural administration by means of systematic identification of decisions and actions, which are considered as elementary categories of the Science of the Organizations. Decisions and actions are components of the same procedure. This factor allows to show them as factors of production systems propulsion, as well as a result of a succession of agricultural and administrative practices marked by the social, economical and political reality in which producers, their families and production units are inserted. This is concerned to the apprehension of the adminis tration rationality, which is present in organisations which are based on familiar labour and located in the rural communities of Cardoso and Dourado dos Lopes in the county of Poço Fundo (southern Minas Gerais state). We try to identify farming systems logics, which are marked by association of cofee with other cattle raising and agricultural activities. From the life history of small farmers reconstructed bymeans of 21 semi-structered interviews, it was verified that farming systems organisation was deeply connected to environment they are placed on. Rationalities which are developed as resources adjustements either human, material or environmental ones by means of farming systems necessarily involve orientations which are based on the idea of the farm as a whole and a complex systems of inter-relations that will determine the agricultural and cattle raising production. It was verified that farm administration is mixed up with the organisation of the family's life. Production and family goals are mixed up and harmonized on the final goal of reproduction and maintenance of the family. It was also verified the basis for new ways of production by means of the harmonization of the past generations knowledgement and new information the ranges from the capitalist modernization in the agriculture to the religious movements as the "Comunidades Eclesiais de Base (CEBs)". This is a situation of confrontation and adjustment that results on the selection of new experiences that involve aspects such as the constitution of a farmers association as well as experiments in alternative agriculture. Through a continuous knowledgement of observation and analysis it is possible to conclude for the validity of the reconstruction process of administrative and agricultural practices as a condition for understanding the administrative procedures in small rural production units. The small farmers are conscious sectors that select their own decisions and actions criteria, andestablish a specific model of production. This model is represented by the analysis of the farming system and the different observed trajectories. The trajectories appear as a result of especificai conditions of each producer in each community. The trajectories organization makes it possible to validate the application of this method, as a preliminar condition for interventions which aim at transformations in both agricultural and administrative procedures on the production units of a specific region.