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Introduction: Among the human adaptive strategies, plant cultivation is one of the most important over the last ten thousand years. However, with the development of large urban centers, human population resign some habits in relation of plant cultivation. Recently home gardens have received attention as an important germplasm bank, preserving many non-commercial species. Objective: This study aims to investigate the diversity of plants cultivated in home gardens. Was also explored how the human population relation with these resources. Originality: Home gardens have a high potential to maintain resources for urban biodiversity through the variety of plants that are cultivated. However, predominantly small cities are targets of studies of this nature, and large cities are the ones that suffer the most from urbanization pressure. Thus, this work brings this approach to the second largest city in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. Methodology: The population of President Dutra and Bonsucesso in the city of Guarulhos, SP, was studied. We interview 150 people, being 102 at the Presidente Dutra district and 48 in Bonsucesso neighborhood. It was used a semi-structured and random selection of households surveyed. Results: The neighborhoods prevailed the cultivation of ornamental plants which were represented by 51 botanical families, followed by food related plants with 38 botanical families and medicinal plants with 15 botanical families. Contributions: These data indicate a preference for the cultivation of ornamental plants in backyards in the city of Guarulhos, SP. Conclusions: Residential backyards of the city of Guarulhos showed numerous purposes such as leisure space, housework, car garage and shelter for animals; however, there is a strong occurrence of cultivated plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to make a socioeconomic analysis over rural settlements in the extreme south of Bahia and in Pontal do Paranapanema in São Paulo state. Its emphasis is on cassava agrobiodiversity. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fifteen farmers in ten settlements in Bahia and eleven farmers in seven settlements in São Paulo. Those regions socioeconomic levels are among the lowest in their states, with major vulnerability in Bahia. About 60% of farmers's children live in the settlement, two thirds of them work on agricultural activities. Composed mainly by elderly population, settlements in Bahia represent most of cassava diversity, whose production provides to the artisanal flour production flour. The cultural dynamics over the flour production activities in the settlements constitute a key element in the region's agrobiodiversity maintenance. The Pontal's cassava production on the other hand, answers to the demand of industrial starch outside the settlements, which causes the growing of few varieties that answer to the industrial standards. The Bahia settlements' agroecological perspective has been fundamental to its agrobiodiversity enhancement while the industrial agriculture perspective endorsed in São Paulo's region weakens the agricultural diversity as well as its sociocultural structures associated with the agrobiodiversity maintenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]