“Environmental Recuperation by Land Use capacity System” to evaluate the sustainability of rural properties of Amazônia

Abstract

The objective this work was evaluate of farm sustainability in the household agriculture in two regions with pedologies and topographics differences in the State of Acre, Brazil: Acrelândia and Feijó/Tarauacá. For each region, two rural settlement areas with seven farms each were selected. The sustainability farm were estimated by “Environmental Recuperation by Land Use Capacity System” (SATRA), which compare of the actual land use and the expect land use based in properties of the soil, geographic relief, technological level and local characteristics. The contrast between actual land use and predict land use determine of insustainability index interpreted by logical decision based in agricultural, biological, economic and social indicators. The results showed that Acrelândia’s farms there were more sustainability than Feijó/Tarauacá’s farms. We attributed this results by fact that Feijó/Tarauacá rural settlement areas has lower land use capacity and larger pressure on the units the of restricted use. No difference was observed for economical and social sustainability between the regions for the system “SATRA”. Otherwise, in Acrelândia region, farms with technological level based in capital dependency resulted in better efficiency land use, productivity and returns to capital, however, no result directly in larger sustainability level for economic compartment.