Is anyone there? Communication between government entities and Family farmers: an integrative review

Family farming is an important economic sector and in order to ensure the development of this sector, the Brazilian government has developed supportive public policies. This segment has faced different barriers, such as the reduced adherence of the farmers to government programs, with failures in the communication process being a possible obstacle to overcome. In this regard, this article aims to investigate how has been the communication process between family farmers and government entities. It was decided to make an integrative literature review, searching the database of “Periódicos CAPES” for articles that deal with the theme, 24 articles were selected. As a result, three main means of communication were found: Information and Communication Technologies – ICT, Technical Assistance and Rural Extension – ATER and cooperation networks. It was noticed that the communication failures result from variables such as economic and technical difficulties in using ICT, the low number of human resources in ATER agencies and the heterogeneity of family farming, which is not always considered. Most of the articles analyzed have as research area the south and southeast regions, a fact that does not demonstrate the diversity of family farming, therefore, it is proposed that further research in the other regions of the country be carried out.