Control and assessment of performance in family agriculture from the perspective of sustainability of farmers

Family agriculture in Brazil stands out for its important role in the economy. It is a sector with potential for sustainable and socioeconomic development of the country. However, it needs formulation of guidelines in order to contribute to its strengthening. Cost management is an important tool for farmers to use in managing their production. When they control production costs, farmers know check the economic viability in their activities. The aim of this paper is to present a vision of family farming, from the perspective of sustainability of agribusiness on the assessment result. Thus, we sought to know what procedures the farmers use to determine the performance, the degree of satisfaction with the performance measured and the possible errors introduced by the farmers to ascertain the result of their productions. Through field research, together with the farmers of Cerejeiras/RO, we found that farmers, mostly, do not control the spending of their productions. They are happy in rural activities, but do not know if they operate at a profit or loss. Most not know the terminology to measure the performance of the production. Also, realizes incorrectly that profit represents the receipts from sales of products.