Indicadores de sustentabilidade em sistemas agroecológicos por agricultores familiares do semi-árido cearense

Abstract

To evaluate the farmer’s perception about the changes in their systems and in some production pointers, the present work was developed with farmers that adopt cotton production systems in agroecológicas bases at the Ceará state semiarid. The cotton plant production proposal in the commented bases has the effective participation of farmers in the whole process and try to find the ecological support of the systems by means of practice that keep or recover the physical, chemical and biological ground fertilities. The pointers identification diagnosis was made with the participation of agriculturists in the cities of Tauá, Choró and Massapê. The selected pointers were chemical quality: total organic carbon (COT), stratification rate of the COT, exchangeable average rates of Ca2+, Mg2+, K+, available phosphorus (P), cationic exchange capacity (CTC) and pH values of the ground; physical quality: ground density, macro and microporosity, and humidity retention; and biological quality: diversity, abundance, richness, Shannon and Pielou’s indices of ground epigenetic fauna. Four areas were evaluated to test them: two under system of production in agroecológicas bases belonging to the agriculturists José Eduardo Sobrinho (JESA) and Raimundo Valentim de Sousa (RVSA) and two other areas, being one under natural vegetation (JESN) and another one under traditional culture (RVST) belonging respectively to the same agriculturists. These areas are located in the city of Tauá, Ceará. With the achieved results, one has concluded that farmers that adopt the production systems in agroecológicas bases are capable to identify supportive pointers in its areas at different aspects considered in the context of support – ground (ambient), social and economic, and that the chemical, physical and biological qualities of the ground in the area JESA have been superior than in the area JESN. On the other hand, the chemical, physical and biological qualities in the areas RVSA and RVST were similar.