CENÁRIO DA AGRICULTURA ORGÂNICA NO SEMIARIDO BRASILEIRO

Abstract

Organic agriculture has gained prominence, both because it is a practice that does not harm the environment and because it provides foods with higher nutritional values. However, there are still major challenges for organic production, especially in semi-arid regions, where information does not always reach producers. Thus, this paper aims to present a characterization of family and organic agriculture in the Brazilian Semi - arid, identifying among the units of the federation those that present a better consolidation of these productive activities in the agricultural establishments. For this purpose, a survey of the main information related to organic and family agriculture in the IBGE's Agricultural Census was carried out for 2006. The Brazilian Semi-Arid region accounts for 33.26% of the total number of organic agriculture establishments in the country, indicating that the Organic producer is present in an expressive way in relation to the other agricultural regions. The semi-arid region of Bahia stands out because it presents the largest number of establishments with organic and family farming practices, the use of alternatives to pest and / or disease control, as well as the highest percentages of agrochemical use, both in agriculture and agroforestry systems. Sequentially, the semi-arid regions of Ceará and Pernambuco also have large contributions to organic indexes, mainly due to the higher number of establishments that receive technical guidance occasionally and regularly. On the other hand, the semi-arid regions of Alagoas and Sergipe show a great similarity, accounting for the lowest percentage of practically all organic agriculture indices in the Brazilian semi-arid region.