Access and impact of Pronaf in Brazil: evidence on typologies and regional concentration

Abstract

The objective of the study was to measure the impacts of Pronaf access on family farming (FF) performance measures with analysis for the FF and its typologies Pronaf B and Pronaf V of the 2017 Agricultural Census. Variables related to family farmers, their establishments and climate were used. The methodology was composed of Entropy Balancing for treatment analysis and Minimal Weighted Squares to measure the impacts. The use of different levels of intensity confirmed the presence of regional concentrations in access in all analyzes. The results of the impacts on FF showed to be related to the Pronaf V typology, confirming the need to analyze the disaggregated FF. The impacts on the Pronaf B typology were negative, suggesting that these farmers are potentially using the obtained credit inappropriately and/or inefficiently. This reaffirms the need to integrate Pronaf with other policies, such as technical assistance and rural extension.