Biodiversidad en predios agroecológicos del Uruguay: Aportes a su caracterización e identificación de prácticas asociadas

Agroecology considers that it is possible and necessary to change the predominant modes of production, moving to a model based on ecological processes, and that this can be achieved through the management of the biodiversity present in agroecosystems and surrounding systems, or agrobiodiversity. The Agroecology Network of Uruguay is an organization that brings together food producers, consumers, processors and distributors who share a vision of the impacts of agroecology in all its dimensions: social, productive and environmental.

In this work we set out to delve into the ecological aspect of the agroecosystems that make up the Network, characterizing a sample of twelve farms representative of different management styles, from the point of view of agrobiodiversity. Our objective was to generate a set of indicators that would be feasible to survey and calculate without the need for expert knowledge or laboratory equipment, and that would serve two purposes: to identify if there are differences in the expression of biodiversity among the surveyed farms, and to provide the technicians and producers linked to the Network with an accessible tool for evaluation of biodiversity oriented to decision making.

Based on the bibliographic review, seven indirect indicators and one direct indicator of biodiversity that meet the requirements of ease of measurement, ease of interpretation and scientific support that supports their relevance, were selected.

Having applied the indicators to the farms of the sample, we can draw three conclusions: 1) the values of all the indicators are better than those calculated in organic and low-input European farms, which indicates that, for the analyzed farms, agroecological principles and their associated practices are effectively applied from the point of view of biodiversity; 2) there are differences in the values of the indicators between the selected farms; 3) these differences are largely explained by the different application of agroecological practices in farm management.