“…According to data from the Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária e Extensão Rural de Santa Catarina and Centro de Socioeconomia e Planejamento Agrícola -Epagri/Cepa (2019, p. 7), agriculture in Santa Catarina is formed by "183,065 agricultural establishments [...], generating about 500 thousand direct jobs and thousands more in different productive chains, generating high added value". Despite this evident economic importance, the problem with this study is the fact that cooperative farms , 23(1), eRAMG220118, 2022 doi:10.1590/1678-6971/eRAMG220118 face a challenge for their sustainability: the succession process (Boessio & Doula, 2017;Facioni & Pereira, 2015;Matte, Spanevello, Lago, & Andreatta, 2019;Morais, Rech, Binotto, & Ruviaro, 2016;Ramos, Angnes, & Costa, 2018;Spavenello, Matte, Andreatta, & Lago, 2017;Teston & Filippim, 2016;Teston, Zawadzki, & Verdinelli, 2020;Zardo et al, 2020).…”