ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the farming livelihood as it was practiced in Santa Terezinha in 1978-1979. It highlights some of the problems and obstacles faced by local farmers. The farming system is described primarily from the farmers' perspective and in terms of the farmers' goals and aspirations. The folk typology of socioeconomic categories in Santa Terezinha reduces the complexity of frontier social structure to three occupational types: lavrador, peao, and comerciante. Farmers are those who have remained in agriculture, peons work for the cattle fazendas, and merchants are those who engage in any kind of commercial activity from a coffee stand to a dry goods store. Eventually, the squatter farmers become intimidated, accept the compensation offer, and leave the homestead. Very often the same displaced farmers arrive in settlements like Santa Terezinha, disoriented, almost broke, looking for a way to reestablish themselves in agriculture. Despite the INCRA land distribution described previously, many aspiring farmers remain without land.
