| Why do you think this project is appropriate for the course assignment? | The rural property is a 6-year-old project based on land use for organic production. In a sustainable way, it works for rejuvenate soil, protect water, grow food, breed animals, increase trees presence, enhance wild animals’ diversity and bring knowledge and economic resources for community. Its ultimate goal is to boost understanding and even develop technologies for the prosperity of a combination of life with human beings, animals, soils, production plants and natural environment.
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| Additional Useful Information | The valley where the farm is located was first occupied by indigenous people: Xokleng and Lklãnõ. Inside the rural property there is still a remnant, a rounded hole that is compatible with a house foundation. Unfortunately, many of them were killed for land selling. After 1.850 there were European immigration coming to the region. They occupied the land to agriculture and did raise families with many children in a well-organized and strong community.
Urubici is nowadays a catholic community of European descendants and has 15.000 inhabitants. Since pandemia many new-ruralists, people from cities, have arrived and formed a second group, the outsiders.
The regional economy deals with agriculture and tourism. There is an important milk production as a second income in farms with Holstein, Jersey and Girolanda dairy cows. Fruits like apples, pears and plums, besides tomatos, onions and cabbages are cultivated in a normal way, with chemical fertilizers and pesticides use. There is a high rate of suicides in the region, probably originated from chemical neurotoxins.
Canoas Highland farm is located over a recharge area of the Guarani Aquifer System. It is by Canoas River and not far from its nascent. The property has a small spring from where the drinking water is collected. Local people have never seen absence of water in the region; in the opposite there were a flood from heavy rains on May 2022. The elders said they have never seen that river’s amount of water.
In property’s valley it is possible to find pumas (leão baio - Puma concolor), deers (veado mateiro - Mazama americana), otters (lontra - Lontra longicaudis), capybaras (capivara - Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) and many wild birds, but recently also boars, an invasive species. People tell there is a cycle every 4 or 5 years of rats’ burst of birth, when every food is devoured. These rats carry hantavirus (they are vectors) and people sometimes get sick.
The geological formation is mainly composed by sandstone rock (arenito botucatu), but we can also find basalt. The Urubici altitude varies from 900 to circa 1.900 meters high with moderate climate from zero to 30°C. Inside the property, the temperature can achieve -8ºC occasionally on winter. The green beautiful valley has its Mata das Araucárias, an altitude subtropical forest. Some decades ago, the centenary trees were cutted and the first-class wood was exported.
The natural resources and human beings have been explored and exploited, there is a lot to do in the region.
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