Agroecological exchanges: processes and practices of construction of agroecology and field education in the zona da mata region of Minas Gerais.

Abstract

Rural Education has been consolidated in Brazil in recent decades as an emancipatory educational paradigm protagonized by farm workers. Agroecology has also been asserting itself as a science, movement and practice that defends the development of ecological agriculture and the autonomy of the subjects who practice it. In Brazilian society today, rural education and agroecology have revealed clear convergences. They are movements, concepts and practices that share a concept of the rural life and project possibilities for liberation and social transformation. They confer centrality to the role played by their social subjects; value historically accumulated knowledge and practices  and are thus opposed to the concepts and ideologies that stigmatize the countryside as a place of backwardness  and deprivation. In this article, which is part of a study on the education of agroecological farmers, we analyze the experience of the Agroecological Exchanges, to understand the limits and potentials of this educational dynamic in the Zona da Mata region. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and the content analysis method were combined. Our results reveal the existence of a vigorous process of construction and socialization of agroecological knowledge, which has strengthened the social dynamics of farmers and boosted the development of rural education and agroecology in the region.