The diversification of family production and environmental aspects: the quality of the environment and social relations between family farmers as a Ground Institute

Abstract

Family farming consists in a production practice that enables the management of supportive economy, the productive diversity, food sovereignty and sustainable spaces. The present work has as aim verifying the form of how the participation of farmers in Instituto Chão contributed for the productive diversity, besides specifying changes in the perceptions about the sustainable means of production from the agricultural production. The applied methodology was of was qualitative whit of the actors involved; then, semi-structured interviews were realized with family farmers thar commercialized directly with Instituto Chão.  The results indicate that the family farmers had some increase in the productive diversity and in the crop handling, generating bigger profitability, as the potato, with 11% of the Sales, followed by saffron, pods and beans, with 8% of the sales. In relation to the environmental and agro-ecological aspects, it was observed that 60% of the farmers practice the consortium of agricultural activities, 55% control plagues and diseases in the plantation with natural products, 35% use green fertilizing, 75% control weeds with natural weeding, 100% use animal manure and rests of plants and 85% know the term Agroecology. The conclusions reached show that a great part of the farmers worry about the balance and preservation of these areas.