Projeto Semear held a conversation circle about the political dimension of Agroecology

2023-04-19 15:35:17

The Political Dimension of Agroecology was the subject of a conversation held by the Semear extension and research project, which works on Urban Agriculture, Agroecology and Environmental Education. The event took place at the Carolina Maria de Jesus Cultural Center of Unilab/CE, last Tuesday afternoon (04/18). The table was composed of Fernanda Schneider, agronomist, professor at Unilab’s Rural Development Institute, and also by Janaina Campos Lobo, anthropologist and professor at the Institute of Humanities. The mediation was carried out by António do Rosário Lourenço, a student in the 3rd Semester of the Agronomy course.

When discussing the theme of the conversation wheel, Professor Fernanda presented a history of how different social movements, historically, were important in the struggle for the inclusion of the Agroecology theme in the agendas and guidelines of public policies in Brazil. Professor Janaína Lobo, when presenting an anthropological view of Agroecology, as a set of ancestral and decolonial knowledge and practices, defended its relevance in encouraging the production of healthy foods, with sustainable production, in denunciation against actions that exclude agricultural production, with the use of pesticides on a large scale, which generates inequalities in food access.

Guilherme Sampaio, organizer of the event and fellow at Projeto Semear, explains that this moment was important for the students. “The conversation circle arises from a need that we at Semear feel to think about Agroecology beyond technique, beyond the ecological dimension and management, because Agroecology is necessarily political, so discussing it in this dimension is essential to understand it really,” he said.

Lauriane Tremembé, indigenous leader and Agronomy student at Unilab, gave an emotional speech highlighting how these actions and practices, of what is understood as Agroecology, are already practiced by indigenous peoples in their ancestral relationship with the land. She also made a complaint about how several of her relatives are prevented from experiencing these practices in their territories due to the lack of demarcation or even invasion of indigenous lands by agribusiness and illegal mining.

For Adelino Armando Sitoe, a Mozambican student, this roundtable event “was very good and very interesting, as I was able, through it, to deepen my knowledge on this great topic of today. I could hear different opinions and ideas, logically for cultural and / or social reasons, nevertheless we are all united by a single cause: the sustainability of the agroecosystem”, he said.

The event received more than 100 registrations and had students from the following courses: Agronomy, Biological Sciences, Bachelor of Humanities, Public Administration, English and Portuguese Literature, Degree in Computing, Computer Engineering, Pedagogy, Anthropology, Energy Engineering, Chemistry, Mathematical physics.