Complexity and sustainability of two agro ecosystems with cocoa, Siuna, 2017

Abstract

This research was carried out in El Carao-Hormiguero Community, Siuna, 2017, in the farms of Los Laureles belonging to Mr. German Valerio Pérez and El Encanto belonging to Mr. Carlos López Lagos, with the purpose of evaluating the complexity and sustainability of two agro ecosystems with cocoa through the management of biodiversity in agroecosystems and determine the level of sustainability in the sociocultural, economic and agro-environmental aspects.

Two methodologies were applied, Vázquez (2013) which evaluates six indicatives and 64 indicators, they are measured with a range of (0-4) being this a standard value to measure the level of complexity of the production systems and HESOFI (2015) that evaluates 71 indicators, 12 components and 3 criteria such as sociocultural, economic and agro-environmental and for each criterion a value of 100 is assigned.

The coefficient and management of biodiversity in the Los Laureles Farm is moderately complex with a level of 2.61 (56.71%) with a satisfactory rating and El Encanto Farm 1.60 (33.44%), being determined as an uncomplicated production system with a moderately satisfactory rating.

The level of sustainability measured by the socio-cultural, economic and agro-environmental dimensions for El Encanto farm was 132 out of 300, its strength lies on the sociocultural (66%), agro-environmental (41%) and economic with (25%). Los Laureles farm presented a value of 202 out of 300, its greatest strength being the sociocultural (75%), the agro-environmental (69%) and the economic (58%). These results indicate that Los Laureles farm has a degree of sustainability of (67.40%), and El Encanto farm with (44.19%).