This thesis investigates recent social, economical and environmental changes promoted by the process of modernization of agriculture and the commoditization taking place in the western region of Santa Catarina, Brazil. It also identifies and studies some of the  strategies carried out by family farmers seeking to face the context of crisis that involves farming in the region since the mid 1980s. We seek to comprehend and analyze how organizational innovations and novelties promoted by the farmers emerge and take root in the region. The overall purpose is to identify and analyze some of the main social and economical changes caused by the productive restructuring process in agriculture, as well as the transformations that the innovations and novelties have promoted in the social- economical environment in which they emerge. More specifically, our goals are to analyze the performance of the agro-industrial capital in the region and its reflections on social- economical and environmental issues and on the organization of production and work of the family farmers. Moreover, we analyze how the organizational innovations and  novelties are undertaken by the family farmers and other social actors and the effect they have in production, organization and market insertion. The question of the research arose from the comprehension that even in unfavorable situations for economical and social reproduction, as has been the case in western Santa Catarina, family farmers have sought to find room to maneuver in their struggle for autonomy. These initiatives in large measure still do not receive the necessary academic and political attention for them to flourish and spread. In order to reach the goals proposed, the empirical research was carried out in two different moments. In the first moment, a case study was carried out in the municipality of Coronel Freitas, considered a representative place in the historical trajectory of modernization commotidization process of family farming in the region. The main research technique involves the application of a standardized questionnaire in 83 family units and the use of semi-structured interviews with key informants. The second stage of the research involves the study of three organizational novelties in 12 municipalities of the region: a small milk commercialization cooperative, the experience of agro-ecological production and its insertion in the short chain of commercialization and the experience of value aggregation in rural family agro-industries, built individually or in small net-articulate cooperatives. For such purpose, 35 interviews with farmers and key informants  were carried out. The research data was analyzed and interpreted following a set of theoretical approaches that have in common the Actor-Oriented Perspective. In general terms, the research data demonstrated that the “novelties” or “rural development initiatives” are born in a certain social-cultural context, but can radiate through the region depending on the connections, alliances and support capable of promoting collective learning. The construction of these organizational and productive novelties represent a social innovations from which the “seeds of transition” can sprout and a process of rural development can be promoted. The development of roots and the consolidation of these novelties in the region will depend, however, on the creation of alliances and connections capable of creating a favorable social-institutional environment.