O apego à terra no processo de sucessão rural: a perspectiva dos filhos de proprietários rurais

Abstract

In Brazil, the succession of rural properties can be threatened by the aging of rural producers and by the reduction in the population of rural areas. This scenario may worsen with the absence of attachment to the land, since it would result in individuals lacking roots and uncommitted to family or agricultural obligations. The main aim of this thesis is to propose the construct of attachment to the land in rural succession. The theoretical framework was based on the construct of attachment to a place and on the threefold model of attachment to a place. By means of a bibliographical review, six categories of attachment to the land were identified: environment, community, rootedness, family, financial return and rural life. The study used the six categories to investigate the formation of the person-rural place bond and to propose the construct of attachment to the land in rural succession. For this, qualitative research was conducted with semi-structured interviews with 25 children of rural landowners from four Brazilian regions. The deductive approach was used in the analysis of the data and descriptive statistics in the profiles. The results showed that the environment where the rural landowner is located, the formation of relationships with people from the community, the feelings aroused by the rural property, the family’s history, the income derived, and the attraction of rural life are elements that influence the possibilities of being a successor in the family. Besides these categories, another one emerged as important for the children: the life of the respondents on the rural property, with their childhood and current feelings for the rural property being related to their attachment to the land and the rural succession. In light of the findings, the construct of attachment to the land in rural succession was presented and the data confirmed its influence on the process, as the rural place is considered an asset and should be maintained by the children. However, attachment to the land is present in both successor children interested in the management and non-successors, which indicates that this is not an element that will on its own decide how the process will occur in rural families. Keywords: connection with the land; rural family business; transfer of rural management; individual-rural place bond.