Does capital represents a limiting factor for family farming productivity?
A case study in Santiago del Estero, Argentina.
There is broad agreement about the importance of Family Farming and the need to enhance its production to ensure food sovereignty. In that sense, influential authors have stressed its importance, but expressed some doubts about the ability of family farmer labor valorization, arguing that its low availability of capital represent a limit to their productive potential. This perception was shared by several policy makers in the region, and influenced the sectoral development programs. However there are many scholars who argue that small family farm production is superior to large scale agriculture, despite its relative scarcity of capital. This paper seeks to provide empirical evidence to this discussion, by studying four family farmers that produce goat milk in Santiago del Estero, Argentina.