AGROECOLOGICAL APTITUDE: PROPOSAL OF EVALUATION IN MOUNTAINOUS LANDSCAPES OF SERRA DO MAR OCCUPIED BY SMALL FARMERS

Abstract

The objective of this work was to generate subsidies for the agricultural planning of small farms inserted, within a mountainous rural landscape, in Serra dos Orgaos mountain range, under family agriculture. Supported by geoprocessing techniques and SIGs, the work demonstrates the procedures adopted for the evaluation of the agroecological suitability of the lands, for environmental units, emphasizing the limitations and potentialities on the basis of the presented environmental qualities and restrictions in each mapped unit. The procedures used in this research work have taken into consideration the creation of a Data Basis, based on digital data from the GIS, and the generation of basic data, obtained in the field, through environmental thematic maps, associated with socio-economic information, rain data and from protected areas, based on legislation, creating therefore, a set of agro-socio-environmental information, in a digital system, which enabled the delimited environmental units and the generation of derived maps. In each of the defined units, a set of relative indications was associated to its limitations and potentialities, qualities and restrictions, fragilities and risks. The considered model of agroecological suitability involves the indication of use, management and suggestions for sustainable alternatives of use with lesser index of damages, aiming to reduce the negative effect on the environment and to improve the environmental quality. It was concluded that the methodology presented is adequate to the agroenvironmental planning of areas with steep relief, since the occurrence of more fragile and problematic segments identified in function, of soil slope, higher susceptibility to the erosive processes and higher degree of environmental fragility, coincided with inapt, restricted suitability, classes, preservation or reflorestation.