Agricultura familiar e sustentabilidade em Mutuípe-BA: estudo propositivo sobre planejamento agroecológico de produção agrícola em comunidade rural

Abstract

Family farming is favorable to the adoption of more ecologically balanced production practices, such as growing diversity, reduced use of industrial additives and the preservation of genetic inheritance. In this sense, agroecosystems can be understood as fundamental unities to the analysis and planning of human interferences in order to reach a sustainable development in agriculture. This study examines the possibilities and limitations of planning agroecologically a rural community’s agricultural production. It is a descriptive study that relies on a qualitative approach. To make it possible, pieces of information have been collected among family farmers from the Community of Água Fria in the city of Mutuípe-BA. Several variables (both external – farming technology, rural credit – and internal – sociocultural elements, social organization, schooling, and internal working capacity) that might interfere or influence the agroecological planning were identified. Although in the present moment this agroecological planning is concluded as impracticable, it does have a great potential, since it could effectively make use of the sociocultural conditions that exists in the family farming. In this context, the implantation of a social and technological business incubator is proposed so that the two variables identified in this study could be minimized and, as consequence, the agroecological planning of that rural community’s agricultural production could be possible.