Construcao de cenarios prospectivos em sistema agroalimentar de Vacaria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil

This research aims at constructing prospective scenarios for fruit growing in the Vacaria region, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Prospective scenarios represent an important tool for business management, because they make possible to trace options on the future through a logical sequence of events, identifying bottlenecks and strengths of the sector under uncertainty conditions. The theoretical references used to develop this study were the Local Agri-food System, Prospective Scenarios, and fruit growing approach. A qualitativequantitative approach, in a systemic research, was used by considering the numerous relationships that presents fruit growing. For the construction of the scenarios, we used Grumbach methodology, based on the Delphi and the cross-impact matrix methods. On the basis of the cross-impact matrix, three scenarios were selected, representing 82.40% of the total probability of occurrences of all scenarios considered by the method: the most probable was the trend scenario, ideal for alternative food systems for fruit in the Vacaria region, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Such scenarios allow early identification of weaknesses and opportunities, as well as reducing uncertainty and introducing strategic actions to balance the fruit sector. The results may also help to subsidize the development of new research in the field of fruit growing. Thus, in the end, authors point out suggestions for future research.