International audience This paper analyses some alternatives in order to promote the multifunctionality o agriculture based on Brazil rural specificity's, particularly in the Nordeste semi-arid area. Our work propose to take in account the local forms of management of these other functions associated to rural production, particularly in terms of natural resources and environment. It is based on several studies about no trade practises of common resource management (land, forest, grazing, water, biodiversity) or about public goods access (innovation, information, market) ruled by smallholders in the semi-arid region. These practises are associated to several kinds of organisation and collective action, and to the negotiation of public policies. Support these collective practises or disposition, or just only recognise their juridical and institutional existence would allow guaranteeing their reproduction or adaptation to a new context. It would assure, at the same time, the sustainability of productive, environmental and social functions as well as the modernisation and permanency of social structures and institution, which are ruling these rural practises and organisations.