Family agriculture in graduate education in Brazil and in the Federal University of Pará

Abstract

The study of Agronomy in Brazil dates back to the 19th century, meeting the needs for modernizing the rural productive sector. To date it has been acknowledged as efficient, especially with respect to the crops of sugar-cane, coffee, cotton, and cocoa as well as extensive breeding cattle. The disputes over land access as a fundamental component in the process of country’s democratization in all its historical periods, the recent worldwide growth of environmental consciousness, and the debates about the performance of development models based on the intensive use of capital have combined to project – by way of contrast – family agriculture as a political category that ought to be contemplated in both Brazilian and international academic reflections. With respect to this acknowledgement, the graduate programs in Agricultural Science in this country continue to be disciplinary, predominantly grounded in principles that value intensive technologies based on capital and, in contradictory fashion, that suppose the neutrality of scientific and technological knowledge. This article presents a study of graduate courses in which family agriculture is contemplated and projects the Masters Program in Family Agriculture and Sustainable Development at the Federal University of Pará as an effort that deserves special attention, due to its link to social movements and its ecological perspective.