Agricultural Defense of São Paulo: twelve years of soil preservation and rehabilitation at Rio do Peixe watershed, promoting conservation agriculture

The objectives of this study are to test innovations for the farms diagnosis, to locate erosion and to correct them with changes in the way of soil management, to aiming transforming Rio do Peixe Watershed properties that were degraded, rehabilitating them, promoting conservationist agriculture whit evaluating the results through remote sensing and water quality indicators. Secretariat of Agriculture of São Paulo State (SA), responsible for applying the Soil Conservation Law, has been carrying out this study for 20 years, working up 772,000 ha, with 19,846 agricultural properties. In 2019, it turned twelve years of inspection/monitoring at the Rio do Peixe Watershed. From 2007 to 2017 14,076 ha were inspected in Vera Cruz, with notification of 94 properties that went from degraded into agricultural companies. In Ocauçu, 82 properties were notified, on 8,125 ha. Besides other tested methodologies, model airplanes and helicopters, in Marília the Innovative CAD Methodology was used, which allowed 52 properties to be inspected on 27,000 ha from 2017 to 2019. There were transformations of degrading agriculture into conservation agriculture on the study carried out at Rio do Peixe Watershed. Property with degraded pasture turned into an agricultural area, with the no-tillage system. Pastures were recovered with the Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems, where the occupancy rate was increased by 31% comparing to the original situation. It is a great work that benefits the Watershed farmers and the population in the region, including improving the water quality that supplies Marília. It is the SA “Caring for the Well-Being of Society”.