Contribution to the sustainability of horticultural productive systems of the periurban of the locality of Bahía Blanca, Argentina

Abstract

In the periurban area of Bahía Blanca, there is an area dedicated to horticultural activity under
the modern production system, where there are ecological limitations, considering that the
adoption of such a model could lead to negative social and ecological impacts. The objective
was to analyze the sustainability of productive systems and determine the factors that determine
it. Indicators were constructed for three dimensions of analysis, ecological-environmental,
socio-cultural and economic-productive, from the Agroecology approach, based on 43 farms.
It was observed that the horticultural systems, for the most part, found themselves in an intermediate
state in their tendency towards sustainability. The main factors that conditioned it
were the origin and time of permanence in the area (which determines their knowledge and
valorization of local natural resources), land tenure, predominant way of commercialization and
the social interaction that sustains them.