AGROBIODIVERSIDADE EM QUINTAIS COMO ESTRATÉGIA PARA SOBERANIA ALIMENTAR NO SEMIÁRIDO NORTE MINEIRO

Agrobiodiversity encompasses all biological diversity managed by peasants/farmers  for agricultural production and its associated knowledge and ancestral practices. In this work, we investigated the agrobiodiversity and its implications for food sovereignty in different traditional communities from northern Minas Gerais, using the homegardens as the focus of study. Therefore, semi-structured interviews were conducted in homes and in their respective sampled yards, meetings and focus groups in each partner community, namely: quilombo of Malhada Grande (Catuti/MG), vazanteira of Pau Preto (Matias Cardoso/MG) , geraizeira of Sobrado (Rio Pardo de Minas/Minas Gerais) and caatingueira of Touro (Serranopolis de Minas/Minas Gerais). In general, according to the partners, the homegarden includes: the zone around the house where planting, animal husbandry and daily deal, takes place, can have or not trees. There are different spaces, like the garden where short-cycle plants are growth. The local importance of gardens for various purposes was revealed in the interviews, as in the self-support, plants and fruit sharing, medicine and family and community relations  loci . A number of 133 ethnospecies, distributed in 126 species and 46 plant families in agroecosystems studied yards, were enrolled. Among the different food itens listed (83), we organized 15 categories of preparation and consumption, in which two stood out (i)fresh consumption and (ii)drinks, as the greatest richness of ethnospecies. The temporal availability of this agrobiodiversity is marked by seasonality, which defines a key annual cycle: representing six consecutive months of rainy and dry seasons, respectively. In each time cycle, the intermediate phases revealed a higher percentage of ethnospecies/community in production, denoting specific seasonally ethnospecies and ethnovarieties, adapted to the regional semi-arid climate. We conclude that the homegarden, representing managed environments forming a  cultural extension of traditions, reveal a remarkably rich agricultural biodiversity whose conservation and enhancement are one of several agrifood strategies that traditional communities have to maintain and secure food, essential for food sovereignity.