Indicadores de sustentabilidade como ferramenta para tomada de decisão no contexto da agricultura familiar e cooperativismo do Vale do Rio Pardo, RS, Brasil.

Abstract

Family farming represents an important sector for growth in food supply and aid in poverty reduction, making it necessary to develop more productive, profitable, resource efficient and environmentally conscious rural properties. The objective of the research was to develop indicators for the evaluation of the sustainability of family farming in the Rio Pardo Valley, RS, Brazil. For the development of the indicators, a bibliographic survey was conducted to identify the main indicators present in the literature focused on the production of food by family farming. The indicators were submitted to the evaluation of a group of specialists composed of 2 managers of the cooperatives and 4 teachers of higher education with knowledge in monitoring indicators, responsible for the selection of those most relevant within this context. In addition to issues related to validation of key performance indicators (KPIs), the survey also addressed socioeconomic issues, identifying the profile of cooperatives and farmers. The survey was conducted with 92 participants, 11 family farming cooperative managers and 81 farmers in the study environment. The results obtained were tabulated in the Sphinx iQ2 software and evaluated based on the Multiple Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) that, through the Global Substitution Rate, it was possible to rank the KPIs, the Critical Success Factors and the Points. View Fundamentals of greater relevance in the view of managers and farmers. Afterwards, new analyzes using Artificial Neural Networks (RNA) were conducted to minimize the number of indicators prioritizing those with the highest potential for information gain for sustainability, considering the data of managers and farmers together. Fourteen economic, 11 environmental and 5 social KPIs were selected and evaluated. Based on the MAUT assessment, the indicators that showed the best performance from the perspective of managers and farmers are related to economic, environmental and social issues, respectively, by the degree of importance on the Lickert scale, from 1 to 5. It was also observed that the rate managers' overall sustainability score (4.45) was higher than that of farmers (4.17), demonstrating that they are more familiar and have a greater understanding of the importance of monitoring indicators in the three spheres of sustainability. By minimizing the number of indicators with the use of RNA, the environmental sphere was more relevant in the context, showing that the opinion of those involved differs from the importance of monitoring some indicators in the search for sustainable development of the sector. Regarding the impact of sustainability on the economic aspects of farmers using environmental and social aspects, analyzed by least squares regression (OLS), positive influences related to environmental indicators, water (financial, productivity and operational aspects), air (environmental aspects) were identified. and operational) and soil (operational aspect). Social indicators, health and food safety (financial aspects and productivity) and opportunities (operational aspects) had a positive impact.