Productivity, stability, sustainability, equitability and autonomy as properties for agroecosystem assessment

“…The farmer, after evaluating the specific environmental, technological and economic boundary conditions, makes his decisions about the cropping systems' structure and functions (Marten, 1988;Silvestri, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diachronic analysis of farmers' strategies within a protected area of central Italy

Silvestri¹,

Pistocchi²,

Sabbatini³

et al. 2012

Ital J Agronomy

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The farm can be considered as the decision unit in the agricultural land management, therefore it is the most suitable scale to analyse the farmers' strategies of production. In this paper we describe the results of a comparison between two enquiries carried out in 1992-93 and 2009-10 on more than 30 farms, corresponding to about 1500 ha of utilised agricultural area (UAA), within the boundaries of the San Rossore, Migliarino, Massaciuccoli Regional Park (central-western Italy). We calculate a set of agri-environmental indicators both at territory and farm scale in order to point out the changes occurred over almost twenty years in the farms' structure, management and production features. The results showed that the major differences were related to fertilisers management (clearly decreasing), to the reduction of some crop types (industrial crops) and to the strong decrease of the gross marketable production. Furthermore, apparently stable indicators, such as the utilised agricultural area and the farm tractors' power, were actually the result of the compensation of contrasting trends. Farmers' behaviours were substantially homogeneous within the same typology of farm, highlighting common evolution strategies. The desirability of the occurred changes was also evaluated, underlining the improvement of environmental sustainability of the current cropping systems and a greater social acceptability of agricultural activities, while the evaluation from the farmers' point of view was less satisfactory.

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“…A complexidade de fatores envolve a definição e caracterização, bem como a estrutura, funcionalidade e propriedades dos agroecossistemas no estuário do rio São Francisco, mediante a metodologia apresentada por Marten (1988) e Conway (19831987). Numa perspectiva sistêmica, pretende-se, a partir das transformações recentes ocasionadas pela ação antrópica, compreender a estrutura e o funcionamento dos agroecossistemas locais.…”

Section: Metodologiaunclassified

“…Segundo Marten (1988), a estabilidade diz respeito às várias flutuações que pode sofrer um agroecossistema, como variações de preços no mercado e sua capacidade de manter a produtividade em longo prazo. Como a estabilidade deriva da produtividade, ela é multidimensional, assim como a produtividade o é. Um determinado agroecossistema pode ser relativamente estável, se consideradas algumas medidas de produtividade, e instável com relação a outras.…”

Section: Metodologiaunclassified