Avaliação da sustentabilidade da hortifruticultura familiar o município de Ceará- Mirim-RN: um estudo comparativo entre os diferentes sistemas de produção agrícola.

Abstract

This thesis discusses the sustainability of family-based agro ecosystems that work with hortifruitculture on "conventional, "organic” and at “agroecological transition” productive systems. The conventional farming systems, which base their production on the intensive use of agrochemicals, have long been questioned by society, regarding the environmental, social and economic problems occasioned by them. In recent decades, the organic production system has been highlighted, for aiming an agricultural production economically viable, ecologically healthy and socially equitable. In Brazil, especially in the Northeast, the organic system has a strong relationship with the family farming, presenting itself as a viable alternative to solve the serious problems faced by small farmers. The properties considered at agroecological transition are those whose productive characteristics are intermediate between the conventional and organic systems. The overall objective of this research was to identify the levels of sustainability in the practices of family-based hortfruitculture, developed under conventional, organic and in transition ways, at the city of Ceará-Mirim - RN. Therefore, we used an assessing methodology based on the method IDEA (Indicators of Farm Sustainability) and adapted to local specificities. The methodology used 32 indicators, which assessed the sustainability of agricultural practices at agrienvironmental, socioterritorial and economic dimensions. The results indicated the agrienvironmental and socioterritorial dimensions as those that are limiting the sustainability at conventional system, and the socioterritorial as the limiting dimension at agroecological transition system. At the organic system, the economic dimension is the one that has the largest number of aspects affecting its sustainability. Following the principles of IDEA method, it was concluded that, at the current context, both “convencional” and “agroecological transition” productive systems are those who have, in the same way, the highest level of sustainability with regard to the hortifruitculture practiced at the county, being the organic system the less sustainable of the farming production systems studied at Ceará-Mirim city.