Worldwide, there is a growing demand for products made by technologies that contribute to environmental preservation and to sustainable rural development. In Brazil, organic farming is one of the most established init...Worldwide, there is a growing demand for products made by technologies that contribute to environmental preservation and to sustainable rural development. In Brazil, organic farming is one of the most established initiatives in this area. Therefore, it is important to subsidize the decision-making regarding policies for organic coffee production. Thereby, this study analyzed the socio-economic sustainability of this production system in relation to conventional. We applied a semi-structured questionnaire on coffee farms in the Brazilian coffee producers states and analyzed the coffee production cost structure. We identified the reasons that led the producers to organic management, implications of certification on the management, and prices received by organic coffee and the market mechanism. Results showed that there is no standard for organic coffee production and marketing in Brazil. Among the producers, there are different levels of access to technical information and the main limitation of the organic coffee chain is not the technology of production, but the difficulty of coffee marketing. Another important limitation, for medium and large farms, is the cost of manpower, mainly in areas dominated by mountain, where machines operations are not viable. Moreover, the yield of organic coffee system is generally lower than the conventional. Furthermore, soil and climatic differences lead to different regional behavior. Finally, we could conclude that the production of organic coffee can be sustainable in Brazil mainly in two structural conditions： 1） family farmers; and 2） small producers, who employ only one or two workers, preferably only in the harvest time.展开更多
This study estimates the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of coffee production in the agroforestry system in the settlements of farmers located in the West of the state of Silo Paulo, Brazil, in the region know...This study estimates the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of coffee production in the agroforestry system in the settlements of farmers located in the West of the state of Silo Paulo, Brazil, in the region known as Pontal of Paranapanema, aiming at the development of programs to support the growth of production sustainable coffee and programs to protect the coffee activity before the possible global climate change. The settlements are located in areas with sandy soils and highly degraded by human action Moreover, the region is considered marginal for the production of coffee, because it is subject to periods of high temperatures, prolonged drought and frost risk, which hinders the sustainability of farms. The environmental and socioeconomic impacts of agroforestry are analyzed through Ambitec-agro system, consisting of a set of indicators aimed at ex-post evaluation of the contribution of technological innovation to environmental, social and economic development of an agricultural activity. The system Ambitec involves： （1） general data collection about the technology; （2） application of questionnaires with adopters selected and insertion of data on impact indicators spreadsheets via platform MS-Excel and to obtain quantitative results and impacts partial indexes and aggregates the impact of technology selected; （3） analysis and interpretation of indices obtained, which vary between -15 and 15. The results indicate that agroforestry management can contribute to： （1） maintaining or increasing the sustainability of traditional coffee-growing regions in the case of sudden climate change; （2） the expansion of the coffee regions now considered unsuitable for the cultivation of coffee; （3） for sustainable regional development.展开更多
文摘Worldwide, there is a growing demand for products made by technologies that contribute to environmental preservation and to sustainable rural development. In Brazil, organic farming is one of the most established initiatives in this area. Therefore, it is important to subsidize the decision-making regarding policies for organic coffee production. Thereby, this study analyzed the socio-economic sustainability of this production system in relation to conventional. We applied a semi-structured questionnaire on coffee farms in the Brazilian coffee producers states and analyzed the coffee production cost structure. We identified the reasons that led the producers to organic management, implications of certification on the management, and prices received by organic coffee and the market mechanism. Results showed that there is no standard for organic coffee production and marketing in Brazil. Among the producers, there are different levels of access to technical information and the main limitation of the organic coffee chain is not the technology of production, but the difficulty of coffee marketing. Another important limitation, for medium and large farms, is the cost of manpower, mainly in areas dominated by mountain, where machines operations are not viable. Moreover, the yield of organic coffee system is generally lower than the conventional. Furthermore, soil and climatic differences lead to different regional behavior. Finally, we could conclude that the production of organic coffee can be sustainable in Brazil mainly in two structural conditions： 1） family farmers; and 2） small producers, who employ only one or two workers, preferably only in the harvest time.
文摘This study estimates the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of coffee production in the agroforestry system in the settlements of farmers located in the West of the state of Silo Paulo, Brazil, in the region known as Pontal of Paranapanema, aiming at the development of programs to support the growth of production sustainable coffee and programs to protect the coffee activity before the possible global climate change. The settlements are located in areas with sandy soils and highly degraded by human action Moreover, the region is considered marginal for the production of coffee, because it is subject to periods of high temperatures, prolonged drought and frost risk, which hinders the sustainability of farms. The environmental and socioeconomic impacts of agroforestry are analyzed through Ambitec-agro system, consisting of a set of indicators aimed at ex-post evaluation of the contribution of technological innovation to environmental, social and economic development of an agricultural activity. The system Ambitec involves： （1） general data collection about the technology; （2） application of questionnaires with adopters selected and insertion of data on impact indicators spreadsheets via platform MS-Excel and to obtain quantitative results and impacts partial indexes and aggregates the impact of technology selected; （3） analysis and interpretation of indices obtained, which vary between -15 and 15. The results indicate that agroforestry management can contribute to： （1） maintaining or increasing the sustainability of traditional coffee-growing regions in the case of sudden climate change; （2） the expansion of the coffee regions now considered unsuitable for the cultivation of coffee; （3） for sustainable regional development.
