Sustentabilidade do modelo agrícola: um estudo de caso

Abstract

Growth and economic development are different concepts. Growth refers to amount of wealth produced by society while economic development refers to quality of life of the people in society. The main goal of the work was characterize the survival of farmers in the rural communities located in the down stream area of Faé watershed. This watershed belongs to basin of high Jaguaribe and involving the Counties of Acopiara, Iguatu, Orós e Quixelô. This studied area is sited in the South-central region of the Ceará State, Brazil. It was applied 237 forms of the “cross over” type with subjective and objective questions. Data were organized in the software Excel. To define similar groups of farmers it was applied the multivariate hierarchical cluster analysis. Multivariable analysis was performed using SPSS 16.0. It was observed the similarity between the studied families. It was used the cutoff point in the dendrogram to define the amount of groups. This point was determined when the value of rescheduled distance of the clustering coefficient reached 8.68. This enabled formation of 5 groups, composed by families independent of geographic position of their location. Results showed that 96% of people have a low education level; 59% are over 41 years old; 85% use pesticides; only 10% of studied farmers use Individual Protection Equipment; 17% have technical orientation to use pesticides; 54% don’t know and/or disrespect the time for use the pesticides safety. 1% return packaging to suppliers; 2% reuse the empty containers of pesticides and 62% discard them in the environment. Results also showed that 40% of people don’t taking any care after the use of chemicals; 50% of them use irrigation system and among them 52% use flood irrigation; 63% don’t preserve the environment; 36% have no knowledge of repair zone conservation; 77% declared that they have no motivation to conserve the environment; 36% participate in some kind of community association; 54% don’t use soil conservation techniques in sloping areas; 68% don’t make the crop rotation; 41% use tillage technique ; 11% devastate vegetation cover of the land; 33% burn the forest; 73% of properties are up to 1 hectare; 48% are tenant; 61% of people live with family incomes of up to U$ 200,00 monthly; 39% of the people use water supplied by wells; 53% have septic tank in their homes. Groups I, II and III are similar to each other in relation family behavior. They are composed by rural family. Groups IV and V are similar each other, but they are different of others, and they have urban characteristics.