SQUADRO-i: Uma plataforma para o monitoramento da sustentabilidade de sistemas produtivos agropecuários

Abstract

In order to analyze and interpret the sustainability of a given system, the use of indicators has become popular and through them, not only environmental issues, but also economic, productive, social, cultural, etc. can be evaluated. In this context, it was noticed that although there are several possibilities of evaluation methodologies, there is still a shortage of tools that adapt to the diagnosis of sustainable development, that is, that are adaptable to other scenarios. The objective of this work is to propose a computational tool that performs the temporal management of sustainability indicators. To this end, requirements gathering interviews were carried out with the researcher responsible for the development of the SQUADRO methodology, which was conceived by Embrapa Pecuária Sul and the Associação Riograndense de Empreendimentos de Assistência Técnica e Extensão Rural (Emater/RS-Ascar) Regional de Ijuí. The SQUADRO-i model is based on SQUADRO and the platform was developed for the web using the PHP Laravel framework and PostgreSQL for the database. The two types of index calculation algorithms built on the platform proved capable of calculating the indexes of indicators tested so far. The tool, in addition to managing the construction of assessments with their appropriate dimensions and indicators, also provides data collection and visualization of information generated from these collections. The platform was tested in four practical applications: in dairy farming, in beef cattle, family farming and also in assessing beef cattle priorities. In these applications, the tool proved to be suitable for supporting different types of indicators, performing the temporal comparison of indices and being applicable in performance evaluations of other types. Among the tests carried out, the acceptance test was included, which brought positive evaluations regarding the importance of the tool in its context and also possible improvements to be made regarding its ease of use. The platform proved to be practical and effective in assessing the sustainability of different production systems and also in evaluating the performance of beef cattle priorities. There are still other possibilities for improvements to be implemented on the platform, such as, for example, the implementation of a mobile application to collect data in the field. In addition, as a form of aid, in parallel with this project, the construction of a platform that will provide, among others, a training course for the use of SQUADRO-i.