A political economic view about the Brazil's minimum price guarantee policy

Abstract This paper aims to analyze the evolution of the agricultural minimum price guarantee policy (PGPM in Portuguese) in Brazil from 1987 through 2014 (a time period when profound changes took place in both formulation and grants of the mentioned policy) under the political economy point of view. The latter considers, among other issues, the role of interest groups, macro policy system (including the decision arenas), policy subsystems and policy networks. All of them help to understand the three major changes in PGPM during the last 20 years: (1st) the split between support programs for family farming and for non-family farming; (2nd) the less subventionary features of the new PGPM instruments that meet the non-family agriculture; and (3rd) the donor character of programs that cater to family farming.