Résumé
Throughout Brazil, landless families are being resettled under the government's National Land Reform Program. The corresponding resettlements, the so-called 'assentamentos', constitute for Brazil a new type of small-scale agriculture, the successful development of which promises to be long and challenging. The new settlers encounter a range of technical difficulties related to their limited, heterogeneous knowledge and experience about agricultural production, and to their restricted access to financial resources and institutional support. This paper looks at some of the key characteristics of the farming systems of three assentamentos in the district of Unaí in the Cerrados region, and assesses whether and how conservation agriculture could constitute a viable basis for improving existing crop management practices and for increasing their sustainability and overall contribution to improved household livelihoods. The key problems identified were in order of importance: 1) restricted access to tillage equipment for seedbed preparation; 2) late planting 3) poor weed control; and 4).low soil fertility and restricted access to fertilizers. An approach to participatory development of CA cropping systems is outlined, as well as the first steps taken to test potentially useful CA technologies and to identify and formalize CA focus groups. A major strategy is to articulate research activities conducted with individual farmers to design and adapt CA systems to their specific conditions, and activities conducted with farmers' organizations at the community and regional (participatory evaluation, activity planning, organization of market relationships for inputs and outputs, etc...). (Résumé d'auteur)