Land evaluation systems and ethnopedological knowledge in rural settlements’ planning: a case study in the “mares de morro” of Minas Gerais

Abstract

This work aims to analyze land evaluation methods and ethnopedological knowledge in the
implementation of settlements, based on a case study involving the Primeiro de Junho settlement,
Tumiritinga, MG, Brazil. For this, information of the settlement‘s creation, ethnographic fieldwork and
semi-structured interviews with the families were all compiled. We carried out a soil survey and the
classification of land by the systems Land Use Capability and Agricultural Land Aptitude, as well as the
identification of the Environmental Units as perceived by the farmers. A correlation between the
criteria and recommendations of uses of the classes of Land Use Capability and Agricultural Land
Aptitude Lands was found. The local knowledge of the soil and environment are beyond the criteria of
land evaluation systems. The Land Use Capability system does not relate with the dynamic diversity of
agriculture in the reality of the settlements. The Agricultural Land Aptitude system can contribute to
the establishment of settlements, as long as it is used without parametrizations and recommendations,
are generated in a dialogical way and contextualized with the local knowledge of the families.