(Second part)
The management of agricultural systems states the way in which the producer activates and combines the productive resources available to him during the agricultural cycle (land, work, knowledge, technology, etc.), to successively execute the tasks at the field level ( fallow, sowing, cultivation work, fertilization, etc.) that the agricultural cycle requires. In this process, modern technologies (hybrids, agrochemicals, etc.), peasant (native seeds, association and / or crop rotation, etc.) or a dialogue of knowledge, which implies the simultaneous use of modern (radical) and peasant (progressive) technologies. This management is highly influenced by endogenous production conditions (climate, soil, flora, fauna, etc.) and exogenous (agricultural development programs, family income, family demographic structure, etc.), which are unalterable in the medium term.
This management concept includes four issues that we must consider in order to identify, differentiate and characterize the types of agricultural systems that exist in a given territory and, therefore, is transfigured in the heuristic axis that articulates the epistemological, theoretical sequence, methodological and instrumental that requires the development of science. These themes are:
1. The use by the producer of the productive resources available (land, work, knowledge, technology, etc.) during the agricultural cycle.
2. The execution of agricultural practices (fallow, sowing, cultivation, fertilization, etc.) made successively at the field level. Carrying out these practices includes at the same time, theory and praxis.
3. The application of radical, progressive technologies or a combination of both represented in the dialogue of knowledge. Technology represents the scientific knowledge applied to production materialized in machines and devices or in management systems of economic activity (Katz, 1999. https://bit.ly/2U5WWEO) and represents the productive factor that enhances the development of the productive forces that slumber within the land and work.
4. The influence of endogenous production conditions (climate, soil, flora, fauna, etc.) and exogenous (agricultural development programs, family income, family demographic structure, etc.) in the management of agricultural systems.
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Studying the management of agricultural systems requires the collection of empirical data that reflect how this management is carried out in reality, in order to be able to move from empirical abstractions, materialized in the empirical data collected and systematized, to reflective and constructive abstractions, validated by theory (Piaget and García, 1984. https://bit.ly/39CVGk9). The transition from one abstraction to another must be carried out through a transdisciplinary approach, which encompasses the discipline, lto multidisciplinary / multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.
The main feature of transdiscipline is that it transgresses (from the Latin transgrĕdi, ‘to pass through’) disciplinary boundaries (Nicolescu, 2009. https://bit.ly/3laPN2l) involved in the study of a phenomenon, in this case the management or management of agricultural systems. When you talk about transgressing disciplinary boundaries of crop managementIt requires investigating what other sciences influence this process; that is, what factors define how the producer carries out the agricultural practices that this management comprises. Many of these conditions refer to certain scientific disciplines that possess a direct relationship with management (agronomy, agroecology, etc.) and other sciences (economics, demography, anthropology, etc.) that are only related to the former through some of its thematic edges, essential to explain the teleological causes of management.
This is not the case for disciplinary, pluri / multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches. According to Nicolescu (2009. https://bit.ly/3laPN2l), the first concerns a single and same level of reality; it’s more, in most cases, it concerns only fragments of a single and same level of reality. The second approach refers to the study of an object carried out by several disciplines at the same time, but which remains inscribed within the framework of disciplinary research. For its part, interdiscipline refers to the transfer of methods from one discipline to another.
The concept of management hides an essential contradiction that will be key to the epistemic development of agronomy and agroecology. I mean the technologies that apply the management of agricultural systems. In the case of agronomy, articulated with the productivist paradigm, radical technologies predominate, while in agroecology, coupled with the agroecological paradigm, a dialogue of knowledge prevails, where indigenous / peasants apply their own technologies alongside modern ones. Therefore, it is recommended to start the study of crop management diagnosing or evaluating the origin of the applied technologies, which are different when it comes to conventional agriculture and agroecology, as will be seen shortly.
Sharp words
Almost three years ago I received an invitation to attend the Second International Symposium on Agroecology: scaling up agroecology to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals
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that would take place from April 3 to 5, 2018 at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy. This Second Symposium aimed to promote agroecology, providing an opportunity for the exchange of ideas and experiences and analyzing policies and actions that can support agroecology to achieve the SDGs, as well as to accompany the decade of Family Farming.
The golden bureaucracy that still runs the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla prohibited my attendance at this event and with this it prevented the global agroecological community from knowing the advances that BUAP was (is) making in the field of agroecology.
