Farmers’ market as an alternative for strengthening sustainable practices: a study in the city of Marechal Cândido Rondon – Paraná

Abstract

This study addresses farmers’ market as an alternative for sustainable development, within the social conjuncture of family agriculture and its productive system. Farmers’ markets strengthen the bonds between urban and rural spheres, allowing the family farmers to find in this activity an opportunity to strengthen the local market. This research aims to analyze farmers’ market as an alternative for the strengthening of sustainable practices in the city of Marechal Cândido Rondon – PR. This is a bibliographic and documentary study, with a descriptive exploratory approach, contemplating the relationship between sustainability, rural development, family agriculture and rural markets, more precisely farmers’ market in the urban environment, complemented by a case study, with field research and application of a structured questionnaire with open and closed questions for the producers and organizers of the market. Thus, it was emphasized that farmers’ market really is composed of exhibitors, mostly farmers and family farmers, that can also be considered as a business alternative for family farming, acting as a driver for sustainable rural development, since it generates income and expands the opportunity to offer the commercialized products, bringing not only financial, as well as social and environmental return for the family farmer.