Environmental sustainability of an agroforestry system with bracatinga through emergy analysis

Abstract

Agroforestry system (AFS) with bracatinga (Mimosa scabrella Bent.) constitutes an alternative of income and environmental quality maintenance. Emergetic analysis allows the environmental assessment of a system in a broader sense, taking into account all the nature contribution to its formation. The present study had the aim of assessing the environmental performance of an AFS with bracatinga through of emergy analysis. The AFS under study is integrated by the arboreal species bracatinga and the agricultural crop species corn and pumpkin. The studied showed that renewable natural resources exert great participation in the emergetic fluxes of the system, being the most important emergetic contributor to the formation of the AFS. With regard to economic resource family labor was the most demanding service by the AFS, thus indicating that this productive model is potentially effective in fixing workers in rural areas. The AFS with the conditions studied can be characterized as sustainable in the mid-term, therefore requiring adjustments in its current productive model in order to attain long term sustainability.