The Meaning of Sustainability : Searching for Agri-environmental Indicators

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2004

RESUMO

This thesis investigates the sustainability of peasant or family farm agriculture in the south of Brazil. Two different technological approaches adopted by those farmers were scrutinized: the agroecological and the conventional technological systems. A methodology to identify agri-environmental indicators, which could embrace the environmental, economic and social dimensions of the farming systems, was developed to assess those two systems. Agri-environmental indicators are estimators of the impact of agricultural practices on the agrosystem and its environment as well as on farmers livelihood. The Sustainable Rural Livelihood and Driving Force-State-Response frameworks have been used to assess rural/agricultural sustainability. The criteria for selecting sustainability indicators used were policy relevance, measurability, validity/analytical soundness, level of aggregation/communication to the user. Based on these criteria indicators were selected for each type of the following capital assets: Natural, Financial, Physical, Human, and Social ones. The research identified external indicators, those relevant to researcher/policy makers, and internal indicators, those relevant to the resource users. The two sets were combined in a single one. Data relevant to the selected indicators were collected from secondary sources and also direct from farmers through a small-scale sample survey, and, where adequate, paired soil sample analyses were conducted. After analysing the data, indicators were selected for each capital asset at three scales: farm, local and regional ones. Cobwebs were used at each scale in order to provide a multicriteria assessment of the situation and to acknowledge incommensurability and weak comparability among these capital assets. The final sustainability analyses integrated the three scales in a single cobweb in multidimension-multiscale assessment. The analysis of these cobwebs provided evidence of ecological sound, socially fair, risk-averse and price efficient strategy of agroecological farmers. The non-ecological farming presents more sustainable trends in the economic dimension. The study draws conclusions about the sustainability of peasant livelihoods and agroecological farming in the south of Brazil, the usefulness of indicators in the assessment of it as well as their possibilities for wider application.

ASSUNTO(S)

economias agraria e dos recursos naturais economia e meio ambiente agri-environmental indicators desenvolvimento rural agroecological farming sustainability of peasant livelihoods agro-ecologia sutentabilidade

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