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Dom Feliciano is a Brazilian municipality located in the south-central region of Rio Grande do Sul State; around 90% of its population are polish descent and due its population and socioeconomic structure, it is a rural territory whose agriculture activities, like tobacco, contribute significantly to the municipality GNP (gross domestic product). In the year 2000, the local reality manifested complex through its socioeconomic indicators. At this juncture, the genesis of a social process starts to constitute on the basis of a municipal participating planning exercise made by articulators of Emater/RS, in 2001. The present paper, through a qualitative methodology and ethnographic investigation tools, supported in the actor's perspective as theoretical-analytical referential, aims to analyze the generation of knowledge and the social innovations construction of the family farming in Dom Feliciano, during the last two decades of the XXI Century. It was documented the construction of social devices in the form of the Municipal Council for Rural Development and the Municipal Plan for Rural Development; As well as innovations where the participation of diverse actors and community associations promoted the creation of social capital and organization actions, like the Cooperativa Agropecuaria Centro Sul (Coopacs), which articulates and materializes the demands and necessities of the community around the own view of local development and with the actors autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]