Desenvolvimento agropecuário na caatinga paraibana: um diagnóstico com foco na sustentabilidade

Abstract

Sustainable development is seen as an excellent alternative in promoting the social wellbeing and prosperity of peoples without, however, degrading the environment. Considering that the Caatinga of Paraíba is a very socioeconomically sensitive region and very environmentally degraded, there is an urgent need to study this territory in order to diagnose how development occurs in this region. The objective of this work is to diagnose the development in the Caatinga of Paraíba and to propose practical strategies of sustainable development for this territory. For this, we collected data within the three axes of sustainability and, through mathematical modeling, we obtained results that supported the definition of a diagnosis. We observed that there is a negative relationship between land use for production purposes and forest cover; areas destined for agricultural production are related to environmental degradation and agricultural production has a positive relationship, but with a narrow effect, on the economy and social development. Our results show that development in the Caatinga of Paraíba cannot be considered sustainable since the production of goods and services leads to environmental degradation. Therefore, we propose, as a matter of urgency, the replacement of the agricultural model practiced by low-impact production systems, with the aim of ensuring that all the municipalities studied start to maintain at least 50% of their forest cover. We also advise that agricultural productivity needs to be high, but through the rationalization of the use of resources so that, in this way, sustainable development is achieved.