Agroecological management and soil quality indicators in the perception of family farmers

Abstract

Intensive use of the soil can cause soil degradation processes. This problem is faced by many farmers on their land. Soil quality is an important factor for the development of sustainable agriculture and can be assessed through indicators. Thus, this work aims to define a set of soil quality indicators in the view of farmers. For this, a questionnaire with unstructured questions was used. It is possible to verify indicators related to the physical, chemical and biological quality of the soil, with a predominance of physical indicators over the others, probably due to the ease of visualization of these through the development and appearance of the plants and when preparing the soil for cultivation. Farmers have empirical knowledge about the soil quality indicators, many of which were acquired from the experience of cultivating and observing the landscape change that occurred over the years.