Resumo

CASTELAN VEGA, Rosalía; TAMARIZ FLORES, Víctor; RUIZ CAREAGA, Jesús  e  LINARES FLEITES, Gladys. Sustainability assessment of the agricultural activity of three rural districts in Pahuatlán, Puebla. Ecosistemas y recur. agropecuarios [online]. 2014, vol.1, n.3, pp.219-231. ISSN 2007-901X.

Despite the global consensus towards sustainability, there is still no agreement on how to quantify it in order to make practical decisions that will lead to a sustainable development. In its assessment with regards to agroecosystems, it is required to make complex aspects into clearer aspects, that discern trends on a system level, known as indices. The investigation assessed the sustainability of the agroecosystems pertaining to three districts in the municipality of Pahuatlán, Puebla, through the estimation of the sustainable development index (s³). A descriptive longitudinal field study of the year 2009 to 2012, on a total population of 506 agroecosystems in the districts of San Pablito, Xilepa and Tlalcruz, belonging to the municipality of Pahuatlán, Puebla; of the whole, a stratified sample population of 288 agroecosystems was taken as well as their producers, to whom a socioeconomic questionnaire structured to measure the three dimensions of sustainable development (environmental, economic and social) was administered. The results showed that all the districts of Xilepa and Tlalcruz find themselves at a critical level of sustainability with values of 0.34 and 0.40, while San Pablito showed to be at an unstable level with a value of 0.52. The environmental dimension presented the largest limitation for sustainability in these districts. These results are an indication to the need to design and implement plans and programs for rural development, the likes of which promote and improve the level of sustainability in these districts, so as to assure their long-term existence and increase their quality of living.

Palavras-chave : Agroecosystems; Marginalization; Index; Degradation; Sierra Norte.