Soil quality: an etnopedologic vision in organic tobacco family farms.

Abstract

The model of modern agriculture has been centered in the soil intensive use. Face to this situation, problems of conservation land is an issue that concern farmers. Tobacco production in areas of high ambient fragility is one example that the high susceptibility of soil degradation has contributed to the soil quality decreases. The soil quality is one of the important factor for the development of a sustainable agriculture and can be evaluated through indicators. Therefore, the objective of this work was to promote the soil quality knowledge to get a set of indicators in order to understand and to evaluate theaspects related to the use, manage and soil conservation. The study was carried out in fourteen family farms, located in Canguçu-RS. Semi-structured interviews, was the research method used for defining a set of soil quality indicators as well as the management and soil conservation understanding. It was concluded that these farmers possess a holistic vision of the soil quality that is based on dynamic processes of the integration of the soil properties. Interactions between scientific and popular knowledge is carefully discussed in this study,