Sustentabilidade agrícola na comunidade ilha das flores- São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Amazonas

Abstract

The Upper Black River is a place of great interest when discussing the exploitation of natural resources by local human populations as well as the sustainability of these activities on ecosystems. Among the activities that allow for the maintenance and preservation of these populations is agriculture, characterized as family. In this context this research was to evaluate the overall agricultural sustainability in environmental, social and economic dimensions in the Community Flowers Island, focus of this research. With the following specific objectives: To characterize and typify the sociocultural means of maintaining family farmers in the community; Identify the limiting aspects and potential (critical points) that appear to affect the local agricultural sustainability; and analyze agricultural sustainability in the fields and homegardens in the Community Flowers Island, located in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Amazonas. To do so, this research opted for a systemic approach , which is a kind of fundamental approach to the understanding and analysis of the functioning of agricultural production units. The sample included 14 agricultural productive family units, which live off agriculture, extraction plant and animal, besides fishing. Forms with open and closed questions were applied and the data were tabulated and processed in Excell 2010 program for further analysis. The construction of environmental, social and economic indicators , occurred from participatory meetings with community. Given these procedures, we can generally conclude that: The family is the basis of support in the production, this production contains is based on the locations of use and appropriation of natural resources: the Negro river (fishing), the nearest forest, called "bush" (plant and animal extraction), agroforestry backyards, barns and fields (agricultural activities). The presence of natural resources (rivers, forests) in this upland ecosystem are essential to maintain agricultural biodiversity in production systems, as well as the habits and traditions , which are responsible for the continuing establishment of farmers community Flowers Island, during the years, culminating with the local environmental and socio-cultural sustainability .