This is a CTP of initiative: La Via Campesina/ANAMURI (Chile)
This CTP refers to the ambitious training project initiated by ANAMUR in 2014 that concluded with the first National School of Agroecology developed in May 2015. This proposal is proposed as a first step in a broader strategy associated with the creation Of the future Institute of Agroecology of the peasant Women.
“We Seek to promote the strengthening and recovery of a peasant social framework committed to its values and identity, which will cement the building of food sovereignty in Chile. To this end, we focused on the training of peasant and indigenous women through the implementation of the first phase of the Institute of Agroecology of Latin America (IALA) in Chile.”
The project of the first national school of Agroecology contemplated a first stage in which three interregional schools were realized; The first in the north of the country, the second in the center and the third in the south. Finally, in May 2015, a National School was held where a selected group of students who participated in interregional schools continued their political and practical training in agroecology.
The process of agroecological training in its first stage contemplated that these schools were oriented for women, based on popular education and peasant-to-peasant methodology, can strengthen their identity, safeguarding the approach and political approach of the CLOC-Via Campesina and the peasant and popular feminism. The National School of Agroecology was held in the Region of "Libertador Bernardo O' Higgins (in the Center of the country), during three months between May to October of 2015 under the modality of internship for a week and three weeks of field work where the students did Practical activities in agroecology and dissemination.
The referents of ANAMURI consider that the realization of the interregional schools and the national school was a step of great importance in the process of training of the rural women of Chile. Above all, they identify it as a pilot plan of what will be the future Institute of Agroecology in Latin America for women in Chile and the Southern Cone.
The realization of the national school of agroecology emerges as a reaction to the systems of education in agronomy developed by universities in Latin America:
"While traditional universities continue to form thousands of 'technicians' (agribusiness promoters), Via Campesina has developed, since 2006, innovative experiences, creating agro-ecological training spaces that democratize debate, knowledge, science and technology. These spaces, including the new Institutes of agroecology of Latin America (IALA) in Paraguay, Brazil and Nicaragua, are places where training is oriented towards critical thinking and, at the same time, seeks to equip young people with practical tools to build food sovereignty."
For the ANAMURI referents, the training project initiated with the National School of Agroecology is a strategic action that responds to the consolidation of agribusiness. In this way, a process of co-production can be observed between the consolidation of commercial agriculture in Chile and the development of an alternative training project based on agroecology.
"The agroexport model is presented as an unquestionable success and unfortunately has made us more and more dependent on our access to food. Chile currently spend about 40% of its incomes of agricultural exports in food imports. Meanwhile, peasant families are being driven out of the countryside because they have no land or because the abuse of intermediaries - especially supermarkets - and the absence of local commercialization channels does not allow them to sell at fair prices.
The agro-export model of our country is based on the devastating use of natural resources, through the indiscriminate use of agrotoxics, the depletion of soils and the pollution of the environment and water.
On the other hand, the educational model has also become a mechanism of expulsion from the land. There is no school education that allows us to take pride in our knowledge or the work of our parents. Already in the seventh year, the children must go out to educate themselves to the city. And technical and university education has as its central message that peasant production is neither important nor of good quality."
In addition, the National School of Agroecology allowed for different links with different state agencies, such as the Ministry of Agriculture, the Institute for Agricultural Development (INDAP), the National Women's Service, the Ministry of Agriculture Education, the Mayoralty of the commune of Chépica and the Board of Neighbors of Costa de Auquinco (place where the event was held). The IALA-Chile project, received support from CLOC and Vía Campesina, with finantial help from the EMAÚS Foundation and the Basque Country government.
ANAMURI's Chilean agroecology training project was developed within the context of the creation of different Latin American Agro-Ecological Institutes of peasant organizations (IALA). Within this framework, in 2005, the School of Latin American Agroecology in Brazil began as a political training center for organizations belonging to the CLOC-Via Campesina. From this experience, Latin American institutes are opened in Venezuela (2006), Paraguay (2008), IALA Amazónico (2009) and other experiences in Colombia and Argentina.
The National School was preceded by three interregional schools that were carried out between mid-2014 and early 2015. The first interregional school was held in the town of Canela in July 2014 and was aimed at peasant women from the north from the country. The second inter-regional school was developed in October 2014 in the central area. Finally, in January of 2015, the third interregional school for the southern zone in the city of Temuco was held.
The classes, debates and workshops were scheduled for five days of activities for the three interregional schools. Each of the schools lasted five days, an internship. They were denominated seasonal because they were developed in the periods of the year of less agricultural activity in each one of the territorial areas.
The realization of the national school of agroecology emerged in contrast to the dominant agricultural production model. For ANAMURI referents, these educational spaces are social achievements:
"A result of the struggle and mobilization for an education that dignifies peasant reality. They are spaces of popular education based on philosophical principles such as education from and for social transformation: to form women and men with new values, with a new emotion face other human beings that leads to action for social transformation, always opting for the peoples And rejecting life choices promoted by capital. It seeks to rescue the highest human values such as solidarity, humility, equality, justice, honesty, internationalism, and respect for nature as the foundation of the praxis of the subjects in formation."
On the other hand, the implementation of these training activities presented limitations inherent to the dynamics of peasant life:
"Initially it was contemplated that the National School was an internship, with two continuous weeks of face-to-face classes for three weeks of distance learning, where students could practice what they learned in their homes and communities, repeating this modality three times and thus complete Three months of studies. This modality had to be modified, since the students could not leave their homes and estates for so long, therefore, we requested an extension in the deadlines for the final reports, precisely so that the students have fewer impediments to attend. Finally, the modality of the National School was one week of face-to-face classes for three field work, and for six months to complete the previously developed curriculum.”
For those responsible for the School, the change of modality had to be made due to the characteristics of the target group (peasant women between 20 and 50 years). Many of those who applied to the school could not attend because they did not want to take their children or not have anyone to drop them off with. Others could not because the times did not coincide with their studies or work. It can be considered that attending schools meant going out for at least five days of their homes.
In this CTP a high level of anticipation can be observed. The ANAMURI referents pushed the project in a planned way. The interregional schools and the national school of agroecology were part of a project planned several years ago by de organization.
"We are committed to agroecology from the construction of a proposal for alternative or sustainable rural development that generates an agriculture that solves the problems of rural and urban communities from the perspective of: Social equity, economic viability, own culture, political participation and environmentally healthy.
In this sense, in ANAMURI, we have started a process of agroecological training with a gender perspective, aimed at the rural women belonging to the grassroots organizations that comprise it. Since 2013, this process begins with the preparation and implementation of the Interregional Schools in Canela, El Carmen and Temuco in order to initiate local training processes that would form the basis of the National School of Agroecology.
At the end of 2014, the political pedagogical team is set up to initiate the planning and development of the First National School of Agroecology, which is constituted through six face-to-face modules in Costa de Auquinco, from May to October 2015."
This training initiative was also the product of gathering experiences from other organizations that worked together with ANAMURI of the CLOC- Via Campesina. In particular, based on the previous experiences developed in other Latin American countries. However, the group responsible for the realization of the different schools could not anticipate the implementation problems that they suffered. Specifically, they did not take into account that the modality chosen for the training modalities was not the best adapted to the daily work and family dynamics of rural women.
This CTP can be defined as a great learning process. Those responsible for the project emphasize that learning was very significant for the students and for the facilitators of the training institutions:
"The realization of these three interregional schools proved to be a formative process for both the students and the IALA team, were experiencies of feedback and accumulation of learning, situations that allowed to continue grounding the struggle that the Women of ANAMURI have proposed against capitalism, patriarchy and for the women's rights."
On the other hand, the results obtained in the work carried out in the schools of agroecology was considered a key input to consolidate a system of permanent formation:
"This school seeks to strengthen peasant and indigenous identity, and during the school months this was done based on the debate of the historical processes of the peasant people and the worldviews of the original peoples, going to the Institute of Agroecology of rural women."
The learning processes developed during the experience were associated to a process of re-signification of agroecological knowledge as a tool to defend cultural diversity and the peasant knowledge:
"Another principle is education from and for diversity. Neoliberalism promotes a unique culture in which anti-values such as consumerism, domination and selfishness are universalized. On the contrary, agroecological education resumes the indigenous, black, feminist, anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggle of more than 500 years. Agroecology stands before the unique culture and defends the great popular diversity of humanity, biodiversity as the organizing principle of Mother Earth and the plurality of knowledge."
The principles of the schools consider popular education as a general methodology, the emphasis on a process of participatory learning and exchange of experiences, based on "peasant-to-peasant" formation and the dialogue of knowledge. Without forgetting elements typical of peasant learning and experience, such as orality, mysticism and all ritual expressions of spirituality and identity proper to each community and territory. The way of producing is determined to a large extent by a calendar of activities specific to each region, considering the characteristics of the climate and condition of the land.
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