In Brazil, the evolution of small-scale agriculture and productive activities result from State intervention forms, games of local actors and the proper physical characteristics of regions. To illustrate the relationship between these factors, we analyzed the trajectory of small-scale agriculture in Agreste region in Paraíba, in the Northeast of Brazil. This region, beyond the social and ecological specificities, knew a lot of programs and public policies. We analyze these proposals and their consequences on the small-scale agriculture by reference to a long term time periods. We have identifies three periods important in the region: the weight of political land domination and of the international market until the year 1970, valuing the export crops (cotton, sisal, sugar cane), the strengthening of modernization, of livestock and of land concentration from 1964 until the end of the military period and finally, from the 1985s, the development of alternative models of agricultural production. We highlight the evolution of small-scale agriculture oscillating between expansion and contraction in rural areas.