A participatory modeling experience with young farmers: assessing the sustainability of family farmers in Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Amazonas, Iuri Tavares
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Schmitt Filho, Abdon Luiz, Zanetti, Vitor Baccarin, Farley, Joshua, Sinisgalli, Paulo Almeida
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Research, Society and Development
• Texto Completo: https://rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/11928
• topic: Sistemas agroflorestais; Modelagem socioecológica; Vensim; Construção de cenário; Prática de sistemas; Dinâmica de sistemas.; Sistemas agroforestales; Modelado socioecológico; Vensim; Construcción de escenarios; Práctica de los sistemas; Dinámica de los sistemas.; Agroforestry systems; Socio-ecological modeling; Vensim; Scenario building; System practice; System dynamics.

In Santa Rosa de Lima - SC - Brazil, a small municipality in South Region mainly covered by Atlantic Rain Forest, there is an effort to promote agroecology as socio-ecological improvement for family farmers. Part of this effort was conducted with young farmers in a debate about their land-use practices and the consequences of diversifying their activities. This study describes the process of a participatory modeling approach carried out in a workshop with young farmers to co-design conceptual models for land use practices. As results, a system dynamics model was built to represent their reality. The results of the workshop were embedded in a model to simulate a typical local property and provide insights into the consequences of diversifying their agricultural production by using the agroecological practices.  Finally, the work presents the designed model and the first outcomes of scenario simulation, discussing the use of system thinking approaches in participatory modeling.