Desenvolvimento local e agricultura urbana e periurbana no Bico do Papagaio: análise da percepção dos produtores em Augustinópolis-TO

Abstract

The practice of Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (UPA) is old and its concept addresses the sociocultural, economic and environmental dimensions. The AUP has the characteristic of enabling a short channel for the commercialization of products in response to the local demands of the city. It is observed that in the State of Tocantins there are cities that have made use of urban agricultural practice through commercial enterprises. It should be noted that the State lacks state legislation on the AUP and that only the city of Palmas, which is the capital, instituted the Municipal Program of Urban Agriculture, sanctioned through Municipal Law No. 1,329/2004. This situation led to the study of intra-urban and peri-urban enterprises in Augustinópolis, a city located in the extreme north of the State of Tocantins, in the Microregion of Bico do Papagaio. In this sense, the general objective of the research was to understand the dynamics of the existing UPA in the city from the perspective of the social actors who execute it. For the theoretical-conceptual basis, the literature was used with an approach to AUP, in addition to social and human development, elaborated, respectively, by the authors Celso Furtado (1974) and Amartya Sen (2010). This is a qualitative research, with descriptive and exploratory scope, using the case study method. During the pandemic period, it was possible to obtain the collaboration of seven local producers, who contributed with the collection techniques, namely, the form and the semi-structured interview. The analysis instruments applied were descriptive statistics and content analysis. The results obtained propose that the AUP carried out in the city is based on family farming, being developed as the main source of income for some producers and complementary to others; with a strong link to the knowledge of the field and maintainer of some practices that are less invasive to the environment. Production is characterized by short-cycle crops, annual crops and animal husbandry. It is possible to identify attributes of social and human development based on work activity, income generation, improvement in diet, health and social conditions of the interviewees.