Social perceptions of the agroecological transition process in coffee-growing families of Guadalupe, Huila

Abstract

The context of the research is the coffee monoculture in Huila and its point of analysis is those Laboyana peasant families that carry out these agroecological transition processes. The objective of the research was to analyze the social perceptions that coffee-growing peasant families from a rural community in the department of Huila in Colombia have about their agroecological transition process from conventional coffee cultivation to a crop with agroecological principles. The methodology used is a qualitative and ethnographic approach, a case study in the Los Cauchos village, in the Municipality of Guadalupe, where coffee-growing families were interviewed about their perception of the agroecological transition process. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, categorized and the findings were written up. As part of the results, it was found that for coffee-growing households, four determining components in the agroecological transition process of their agroecosystem are: 1) technical-productive, 2) economic, 3) socio-humanistic, and 4) practical knowledge, linking care, effort, dedication, patience, support networks, stigmatization and frustration as significant concepts to understand their agroecological process. By way of conclusions, there is that locally there is a struggle between two conceptions of agriculture, one naturalized and with an entire institutional and market apparatus, and another initial one that opens spaces for a better location within the market and with greater incidence in the administrative sphere. and social relations in Guadalupe, Huila.