This article analyses how small-scale peasant farm organizations have persisted and resisted in the context of changes to socio-economic state policies during the decade 1992-2002. Trade liberalization and agricultural export incentives became the priorities of state policy in the field of agriculture, ignoring small-scale peasant production and forcing them to seek new productive and organizational strategies. The organizations referred to in this article found that peasant survival implies transcending the family plot and the local peasant community. They found that local and sectoral networks play an important role in achieving political advocacy, pressuring from the grassroots so that their demands and needs are met by the upper echelons of successive governments and by external aid agencies. The changes have not left the traditional peasant cultural practices behind, but rather some have reconfigured to face new technological influences.

small-scale peasant farm production; peasant organizations; Zarcero; San Ramón; Naranjo; Costa Rica