Jul 0 21996

Governments and international donors have long financed tractors for small farmers in the backward rural areas as a means of increasing their standard of living and promoting development. Past experiences in the provision of collective tractors to these areas showed negative results in that the tractors ended up benefiting mostly better-off farmers or were left in the countryside without maintenance. This study examines several cases of collective tractors managed successfully by rural associations and cooperatives in the semiarid area of the state of Ceari in Northeastern Brazil. What conditions have been necessary for this good performance? In answering this question, I review the past experience of federal and state programs providing these machines to farmers, and the current approach under which farmers have to contribute with a percentage of the total cost of the tractor. As a result of this direct stake in the good functioning of the tractor, I argue that these organizations have been able to adequately manage their tractors by developing a clear set of rules that (i) minimized the conflicts for the use of the machine and (ii) recovered their operation and maintenance costs. The arrangements these groups have devised included more equitable assignments in the order of tractor use and criteria for defining it on the basis of the rainfalls. Revenue maximization and cost rationalization are also part of the arrangements that the communities have learned and adopted over time. I conclude with some remarks on how planners and policy makers should continue funding tractors to these kind of organizations. Thesis Supervisor: Judith Tendler Title: Professor of Political Economy