Resumen

MERMA, Isaías  y  JULCA, Alberto. Characterization and evaluation of farm sustainability in alto Urubamba, Cusco, Peru. Ecol. apl. [online]. 2012, vol.11, n.1, pp.1-11. ISSN 1726-2216.

The study was conducted in the province of La Convencion, Cusco - Peru, in a geographical region of the high jungle known as Alto Urubamba. This research aims to evaluate the farm characteristics and measure their sustainability through local adapted indicators. Field data were collected both in biophysical and socio-economical terms and analyzed in selected variables from a database using programs such as SPSS, MINITAB and Cluster Analysis. The results show that the average farm area is 12.38 ha and that there is a diversified production in the region with a pattern of prevalent crops such as coffee, cocoa, tea, coca and tropical fruits that are destined for sale, accompanied by annual crops and livestock for subsistence. The economy of the farmers is critical; the average income in the area is below the official numbers. There are ecological problems such as wildfire (21.7%), deforestation (15.1%) and prolonged droughts (15.1%). The land-use pressure is moderate, subsistence production systems represent 46.2%, while semiintensive production systems destined for sale represent 53.8%. According to the sustainability evaluation, sustainable farms are those that produce mango (2.87), cocoa (2.82), banana (2.80), citrus (2.63) and papaya (2.57), and unsustainable farms are those that produce coca and tea which do not reach minimum values (2).

Palabras clave : farms characterization; high forest; prevalent crops; sustainability evaluation; cropping systems; production systems.

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