SUSTAINABILITY IN AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS: SOCIO-ECONOMICAL INDICATORS

Abstract

It is wide the discussion involving the importance of production adjustment activities in general, to the concept of sustainable development. Among the agricultural activities, the agroforestry systems have been considered sustainable, coming as alternatives to the intensive systems of agricultural production. To monitor the sustainability of agricultural activities, includings AF, the literature emphasizes the biophysical indicators, in detriment of the socio-economical ones. Seeking to define a list of socio-economical indicators that can be adapted to the several models recommendations of AF a study was developed, supported by specialists and technicians and wide literature review. The conclusions were: the categories related to the operation of the systems had the largest number of indicators in the socioeconômic component, with larger concentration in the endogenous operations of the system, followed by the endogenous and exogenous resources; the largest number of indicators suggested in the category operation of the system was in the descriptors health and nutrition, employment, habitation and sanity and economic analysis; in the category operation of exogenous systems, there were certain larger number of indicators for the descriptors commercialization and rural infrastructure; practically there was no difference among the number of indicators obtained for the agroforestry systems with and without the animal component.

Keywords

• Desenvolvimento sustentável
• indicadores de sustentabilidade
• indicadores socioeconômicos
• sistemas agroflorestais.