Níveis de sustentabilidade em unidades de produção agrícola de produtores participantes da feira do produtor no município de Passo Fundo - RS

Abstract

The elaboration of sustainability assessment methods is related to the possibilities of measuring and supporting sustainable forms of production, developed by farmers, and how to advance in this important as well as complex theme. Thus, one of the forms that has been presented as likely to improve the indicators of sustainability of food-producing farmers, in their different dimensions are the short agrifood chains. The overall objective was therefore to carry out an assessment of the level of sustainability of agricultural production units of farmers entering markets through short agro-food chains. The operationalization of the research consisted of three stages, in order to reach each specific objective that, respectively, resulted in three articles. The first step, consisting of analysis of secondary data, consisted of describing the state of the art related to the tools of sustainability measurement, through Bibliometric analysis, from Scopus platform. In the second stage, an exploratory field study was carried out in order to characterize the 47 producers that work in the Municipal Fair of the Rural Producers of Passo Fundo-RS, and to capture their perceptions regarding the insertion in the markets through chains short-term marketing and how marketers believe that consumers take into consideration to make the acquisition of their products, held in the months of May to September 2018. In the third stage of field research, we sought to assess the sustainability levels of six Agricultural Production Units (UPAs) of family gardeners participating in the Municipal Fair of Rural Producers of Passo Fundo-RS, held in April and May 2019. The Method of sustainability analysis was the MESMIS Management of Natural Resources). The results of Article 1, with respect to evaluation tools and/or methods for measuring rural sustainability levels, show that a set of them is available for use in different contexts. Despite being presented as innovative and with a rather broad applicability, some authors emphasize the importance of making adaptations to meet local specificities, which demonstrates the fragility of universalized methods. In Article 2, three types of farmers were identified: the producers of in natura products; producers of agroindustrial products and intermediaries. Their perceptions, in general, corroborate with the literature on the relevance of economic as well as social relations built in the field of short agri-food lamps (informal traceability, trust, reciprocity, quality and origin of food). Finally, in Article 3, the results of the sample classify them at the level of regular/medium sustainability, which means that most indicators are regular. So we still have to take a path, in fact, to achieve a general level of desirable/good sustainability. In conclusion, the sustainability theme, as well as its evaluation is complex, requires an interdisciplinary approach and is constantly being developed and improved, in line with the short supply chains.