Family Farming and Technology Solutions - local agents as protagonists in knowledge generation

Abstract

This paper is part of the results of the ongoing research project entitled “Analysis of the role of family farmers in generating technological solutions for agriculture”. Objective: 1) to understand the role of family farmers as relevant agents in the generation of materialized knowledge in new processes, products, techniques and technologies for agriculture; 2) identify which paths lead to the production of this knowledge and what their transformation potentials. For the localization of the solutions generated by the farmers, a network of collaborators was created who applied a form - built in partnership between the agents - in 2017 and 2018. Subsequently, the collected data was organized and systematized. The contributors (project team of teachers, researchers, and students) located 58 techniques, technologies, processes, or products generated by family farmers. From the solutions found, a research team conducted 18 semi-structured interviews with agents responsible for creating new processes, techniques or equipment for family farming. It was concluded that the generation of own technological solutions is a characteristic and defining element of family farmers as a category, considering that they establish and have clarity about the objectives of their socioeconomic activity, while developing each of the existing tasks in your productive unit. This feature allows the family farmer to identify the problems of each process and think of ways to solve it, either by modifying a production method or by creating a new machine or equipment.