Agroecology in Field Education in Ceará, Brazil

Abstract

In this article, we analyze Agroecology as a formative matrix for Field Education in the State of Ceará, Brazil. We also observed that agroecology developed in rural schools in Ceará, has a subversive character and, therefore, can be read as a ‘contentious territorial policy’. In addition to the bibliographical survey and the field experience at Escola do Campo Florestan Fernandes, located in Assentamento Santana, in Monsenhor Tabosa (CE), informal conversations and semi-structured interviews were data collection instruments used in this research. The experimental field and agroecological backyards revealed the diversity of crops and livestock. Furthermore, social technologies showed the efficiency of the peasant unit, in the context of scarcity in the semi-arid region. In the school curriculum, together with the common core, the diversified base dynamizes agroecological knowledge and practices materialized in the peasant territory. The 'socio-territorial development project’ involves the students and all the subjects involved in the MST educational process. In this sense, we consider that rural schools in Ceará, based on Movement Pedagogy and Agroecology, have boosted the protagonism of peasant youth who have chosen to study and remain, developing new perspectives and alternatives to the challenges of the struggle for food sovereignty, quality education, with dignity and social justice in the countryside and in the city.