The socioeconomic development of a region must be based on principles of environmental sustainability; otherwise, we may leave our future generations a legacy of shortage and misery. Therefore, this work aims at identifying the types of production and management in agricultural areas. The study was conducted with farmers from Silveira Martins, Nova Palma and Ivorá in Rio Grande do Sul State. These areas were selected due to their location — sloping lands of Serra Geral, whose environmental fragility is significant. Closed-ended questionnaires were used with all Horticulture Agro-industrial farmers studied, based on lists provided by the cities' agriculture departments and Condesus. The results indicate that the majority of crops take place in sloping lands because of the regional topography. Most of farmers conduct their activities for production and commerce and are aware of the risks and become interested in projects that enable the unit of production in a sustainable way.
environmental management; sloping land; agricultural production