Sustainability of family farming properties and the contribution of homeopathy

Abstract

Family-based agrosystems constitute a way of life with indispensable importance in providing food for society. However, intense industrialization, where knowledge has been linked with technological packages, which in turn depend on a constant flow of non-renewable economic and environmental resources, makes their sustainability increasingly questionable. In this thesis work, the objective was to evaluate the sustainability of family farmers' properties and its impact on the adoption of homeopathic therapy in substitution of traditional/conventional intensification techniques through the exploration of an alternative scenario. The study was conducted in four independent but consecutively complementary steps: (a) A bibliometric review of the emergy synthesis method was carried out as a methodological tool to assess the sustainability of agrosystems. The review supports the choice of other scientific methods/tools to consolidate a more comprehensive conceptual model of sustainability; (b) Assessment of the sustainability of 6 properties of family farmers in the Serrana Mesoregion, classified according to their management and representativeness of agricultural activity in: conventional grains-cattle, milk-grains, grains and diversified; and ecologically based in agroecological and organic. The sustainability analysis is performed using the metrics of synthesis in emergy, embodied energy, ecotoxicity potential and socioeconomic indicators; (c) Contribution of homeopathic preparations to the sustainable management of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris); (d) Possible impact of the implementation of homeopathy on the sustainability of family properties by exploring an alternative scenario. The results show that in the Serrana Mesoregion, SC, the family property with Conventional Diversified typology has the highest level of sustainability. Since, in general, they have the potential to make more emergy available to society through invested emergy from the economy as well as better values in profitability, profitability, income per hour of work and income sufficiency. On the other hand, the Agroecological and Organic properties presented the best environmental performances in the emergy indicators. Experiments with homeopathic preparations in bean culture show that it is possible to replace pesticides and still have acceptable yields. In exploring alternative scenarios, homeopathy would contribute to having more efficient properties in the use of emergy from external sources, increasing the capacity of systems to exploit their local resources, in addition to focusing on cleaner production at lower costs. Thus, homeopathic therapy could be used in strategic plans for public policies to improve the sustainability of family farms in the Serrana Mesoregion.