Situated agroecology: context, process and massification of Program Degree in Agroecology in Venezuela

Abstract

Throughout the process of transformation since 1999 known as the Bolivarian Revolution, harsh class and food system contradictions have unfolded in Venezuela, pitting against one another the forces of the pervasive consumer culture favoring imported foods, the input-intensive Green Revolution agricultural model that represents a state-led push toward food self-sufficiency, and an emerging agroecological paradigm pushed forward by grassroots movements who have seized political openings through the largely supportive policy environment. The Bolivarian University of Venezuela, itself a product of the revolutionary process, founded the Program Degree in Agroecology in 2004 to expand agroecological practices and knowledge, based on alternative pedagogical approaches. Over the next decade, over a thousand PFG graduates have come to occupy institutional spaces and productive projects in urban and rural areas, contributing to vertical and horizontal agroecological scaling. PDA graduates and educators play a key role in the growing movement of urban agriculture that confronts the economic crisis. The PDA has created key mediators in the form of human talent for territorializing agroecology and institutionalizing pro-peasant policy in Venezuela. As a political outlier, Venezuela is an important case for studying the strategies for territorializing what we refer to as socially committed, situated agroecology.