Sustainable vegetable production for small family farmers: A case study in Tietê/SP

Sustainable food production promotes improvements in the quality of life and seeks positive effects on local biodiversity and food security. This cultivation technique facilitates increased production efficiency by avoiding the risk of contamination among farmers and consumers. In this way, the University can serve as a source of knowledge by offering adequate technical assistance in order to spread technologies that do not typically reach small family producers. Thus, this extension project proposal for involves using undergraduate students from the Lagoa do Sino campus of UFSCar to provide agronomic technical assistance for the production of vegetables in a sustainable way for a small family property located in the municipality of Tietê/SP. From applied extension techniques, the participatory rural diagnosis made 13 face-to-face visits to the small rural property. During the execution of relevant activities, significant positive developments were made in the relationship between students and the farmer, which were primarily related to sustainable production techniques that involve both sides (student/producer) potentially improving their technical knowledge while stimulating low-cost and environmentally-friendly production techniques.