The Agro-environmental perception of the family farmers of Paraná's Southeast region: the Capanema municipality' Case

Abstract

Until which point a bigger discernment of the family agriculturist in relation with environmental issues contributes to the fact of to reduce environment vulnerabilities? The agro-environmental perception of thefamily agriculturist about the recrudescence of the soil’s degradation process helps to reveal that, because of the strong incentives to the exportation culture a contradiction was generated between the necessity of favorable commercial balance to the country and the environmental sustainability of the family’s agriculture. The objective of this article is to discuss the agro-environmental perception family of the agriculturist’s by means of the case study analysis of the city of Capanema, neighbor of the Iguaçu National Park that is situated in the Southeaster Region of the State of Paraná (Brazil). As methodology we realized a Agro-Environmental Diagnosis to captivate the environmental perception of thirty family agriculturists to measure the level of adoption of conservative practices by the family agriculturists in the face of the environmental vulnerabilities deriving from the agrarian intensive capital pattern. As conclusion, the case study allows us to affirm that, even in a region with a more democratic agrarian structure, the environmental vulnerabilities persist because the reproduction strategies of the family agriculture are narrowly associated with the grain’s market exportation imperatives.