Educação Agrícola em bases agroecológicas - Uma proposta de programa de qualificação para extensionistas rurais

Abstract

This dissertation discusses the needs and proposes a new graduate program intended for rural extension agents, considering the current trend of agroecological and transdisciplinary approaches in the agricultural sciences. Also, it tries to meet the demands of a group of professionals with financial and logistical specificities. These include their large geographic dispersion, isolation, diversity of activities and the shortage of opportunities imposed by this career in Brazil. Above all, conventional full time graduate programs do not seem to be ideal for these professionals. This proposal benefited from the 15 year experience of the author, who acted as extension agent; it also considers the views of several official extension agencies, academics, agriculture policy makers and producers. The example of PPGEA (the graduate program for which this dissertation was presented), which is directed to secondary rural school teachers, making use of the alternation pedagogy approach was also used as a model. The research consisted of field and documental investigation. Field investigation was carried out by electronically sending a form with explanations of the objectives and a list of questions, to Novaterbrasil network, a discussion group with 1100 Brazilian extension agents. One hundred and twelve professionals voluntarily answered the query. From those, 12 had to be discarded, because of lack of information, remaining 100 valid respondents. The respondents came from 16 states, mostly from the Southeast region (76%) and belonging to 33 institutions. The majority (53%) was 20 to 40 years old and 59% has acted as extension agents for up to 10 years. Only 25% had masters degrees and 56% declared their intention to apply for one. Agroecology was the main subject (22 answers) mentioned as the theme of their future master s programs, followed by sustainable rural development (6 answers), on a total of 51 mentioned subjects. Lack of time, financial constraints and mobility were the main limitations mentioned to enroll on a graduate program according to 60, 64 and 56% of the respondents, respectively. When asked about their knowledge of agroecology, education and communication, 77, 73 and 66% declared medium to full knowledge, respectively. However, regarding alternation pedagogy, 53% declared no knowledge. After being informed about this pedagogy, 84% declared the desire of pursuing their graduate studies under that frame. Documental investigation consisted of a detailed analysis of 14 graduate programs certified by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, dealing with agroecolgy, sustainable rural development, rural extension and education. All programs except PPGEA have full time requirements and are based on fragmentation of knowledge, being biased to certain specific areas and not fully dealing with transdisciplinarity, social issues and on- farm research. These 14 master s programs offer 250 annual entries which is much below the demand of the extension agents alone. Hence, the demands resulting from the query among official extension agents and the current offer of graduate programs sponsored by the Ministry of Education in Brazil reveals an obvious gap, both quantitative and qualitative, justifying the creation of a novel graduate program able to meet the demands of this excluded set of professionals. Such a graduate program,based on the alternation pedagogy and transdisciplinarity is outlined, having as premises the findings of this research.