Agroecology and new livelihoods for sustainable local development

Abstract

In this article we discuss some agroecological experiences and agroforestry systems of family farmers, based on research about those experiences carried out in four municipalities of Zona da Mata region of Minas Gerais, considering their support organizations and the livelihood production strategies that originated from those experiences. It the text we discuss the weakening of the means of life arising from the strategies of land and environment uses adopted previously, which resulted in negative social and environmental impacts. These problems lead the farmers to seek alternatives to their social reproduction, creating new relationships with local institutions--the Rural Workers' Trade Unions, the Centre for Alternative Technology of Zona da Mata and researchers from the Federal University of Viçosa -- that give support for the agroecological procedures in the region, outlining, we believe, a mode of rural and local development. The field work was done during twelve months, starting on March 2010 and finishing in 2011 and the data were obtained through interviews applied to some of the farmers involved in the experiments, researchers and representatives of the local trade unions and the Non-government Organization CTA-ZM. Other research procedures were participant observation in the farmers’landholdings and the exchange meetings. The analyses point to the construction of a materiality related to new concepts and rural-development practices that can help advance socioeconomic and environmental goals still not obtained by the previous development models.