Agro forestry systems and food security among smallholder farmers of the Brazilian Amazon: A strategy for environmental global crisis

Summary

The Amazon is known for its environmental importance for the climatic equilibrium, for its abundance and richness in biodiversity and its preservation is important to reduce global heating. Nevertheless, little research has analysed the possible positive role of the local farm population for environmental conservation. The paper investigates the possibility to conciliate the environmental conservation with the small farming expansion in the Amazon, to build agrobiodiversity, and at the same time improve food security. This social practice consequently would contribute to the reduction of deforestation and could thus falsify the old diagnosis of incriminating the poor farmers for forest and soil destruction. The study was conducted by the Associação de Produtores Alternativos, localized in territory of Ouro Preto d’ Oeste, Rondônia, in the Southwest of the Amazon. The study documented a number of forest preservation and agroecological methods used and concludes that institutional support to strengthening of social organization and local sustainable development projects is fundamental for the consolidation and amplification of the ecological experiences in the Amazon.