ESTRATEGIAS DE MANEJO AGROSISTÉMICO Y PERCEPCIONES DE RIESGO AMBIENTAL DE PRODUCTORES FAMILIARES DEL NORTE DE SANTA FE

Abstract

This paper explores and describes seven management strategies of family farms from northern Santa Fe, as well as their environmental risk perceptions, in a context of the emergence of new environmental and rural conflicts. Family farms are crucial agents to the regional sustainability and food security. In cases analisis, focus is on farming functioning preferences (nutrients cycling and animal nutrition, plagues and weeds control, productive diversification or specialization) and on environmental risk perceptions in all personal, productive and social levels. In order to analyse these relations, both complex and simplified management strategies are considered. The first are more specialized and orientated to the systemic utilization of industrial imputs, while the others mainly take advantage of ecological services. To access the agent´s singular perspectives, principles and experiences of rural work and life, I took interviews and did direct observation in the field, looking into the decisions that lead the productive use of natural resources and technologies, and collecting the agent´s risk perceptions. These perceptions result of the reflexive construction of human environment.