Resumen

CACERES, Daniel M. Sustainability of peasant's farms located in a natural reserve in Central Argentina. Agrociencia [online]. 2009, vol.43, n.5, pp.539-550. ISSN 2521-9766.

Discussions linked to sustainability occupy almost all social spaces, yet there is not much research that makes the concept operative, and most discussions remain theoretical. Using a theoretical framework and a set of three ecological and three socioeconomic indicators, this work analyzes the sustainability of farms located in a natural reserve in central Argentina. With a series of data of five years, an analysis was carried out of: 1) The socio-productive trajectories of the farms; 2) the advantages and disadvantages of using temporary data series; 3) the problems of using indexes that value the sustainability of farms in an aggregated form. There were no significant changes in the Land Sustainability Index (LSI) during the studied period, although there are important changes in the Ecological Index and in some Primary Indicators (PIs) that make up the latter index (especially erosion). Paying little attention to the disaggregated behavior of the variables on which the sustainability of production systems relies, or an inappropriate consideration of the time scales needed for their measurement, could lead to erroneous valuations of land sustainability. This could erroneously lead to the creation of specific policies, and have a negative impact on the conservation of biodiversity and quality of life of farmers in central Argentina.

Palabras llave : Argentina; peasants; sustainability indicators; sustainability indexes; natural reserve; sustainability.