Banca de DEFESA: IGOR GUSTAVO DE FREITAS

CHARACTERIZATION OF AGROFORESTRY BACKYARDS IN THE PROMISED LAND SETTLEMENT (DUQUE DE CAXIAS - RJ)

Agroforestry Backyards; Promised Land Settlement; Systems Agroforestry; Biogeography; Agrobiodiversity

Agroforestry backyards are characterized as a type of Agroforestry System (SAF) and, as such, have the capacity to combine animal and plant production for different purposes, combined with the maintenance and conservation of rich biodiversity. The multiplicity of intercropping of plant and animal species in a small area is infinite. However, it is precisely this wealth of interaction possibilities that makes these spaces personal or family laboratories on a small scale, as they are capable of simulating interactions between species characteristic of the multiplicity of combinations inherent to tropical climate environments. Furthermore, as agroforestry backyards are agroecosystems in which their organizational arrangement closely resembles natural tropical forest conditions, they are, therefore, around the world seen and used as an alternative for sustainable food production capable of partially or fully supplying the family's food needs and generate extra income. Thus, the present research, through field visits to four agroforestry backyards maintained by rural workers from the Terra Prometida Settlement, in Duque de Caxias, and the analysis of orthophotos and satellite images sought to: recognize the landscape context in which the backyards are inserted , in order to better understand how they relate to the environment around them; identify the floristic and animal composition present in backyards; and identify the profile of the people responsible for such actions. With the help of rural producers, technological applications and support from related bibliography on physical and virtual bases, 1360 plant individuals divided into 77 different families were quantified.

The families with the largest number of species were Cactaceae and Crassulaceae due to their ornamental uses, and those with the largest number of individuals were Bromeliaceae, Rutaceae and Arecaceae, due to the cultivation of foodstuffs such as pineapple, citrus and coconut. All four agroforestry backyards were mostly managed by females with an average age of 51 years. In total, it was found that the structure of the four backyards houses 764 individuals for ornamental use, 547 for food use and 39 for medicinal use, these uses being indicated by the maintainers. The Shannon-Wiener diversity index (H’) of the backyards varied between 2.59 and 4.72, with an average value of 3.29. The most common domestic animals were dogs and chickens, found in every backyard. Through field work and interaction with farmers, it was realized that a large part of the settlement is located in the largest bed of the Iguaçu River, a fact that makes it susceptible to periodic flooding. It was concluded that the agroforestry backyards of the Terra Prometida Settlement studied act as landscape structures that become allies in soil conservation, as they are structures extremely rich in biodiversity that form mosaics of productive units in the Settlement, favoring the exchange of ecosystem services that They benefit both the production of agroecosystems and the settlers who live there.