THE ROLE OF PPGAO IN THE PROFESSIONAL ACTION OF ACTORS OF RURAL EXTENSION OF AGRO-ECOLOGICAL BASE FORMED BETWEEN 2010 TO 2016.
agroecological rural extension, post-graduation in organic agriculture.
The knowledge about agroecological production and their validation methodologies has been consolidating in Brazil since the 1980s. This knowledge isn't restricted to the management of natural resources and production practices, but also as a strategy to discuss public policies of development. Currently the postgraduate programs in Agricultural Sciences have 19 professional master's degree courses, however, on Organic Production has only one. The National Policy on Technical Assistance and Rural Extension - PNAP and National Policy on Agroecology and Organic Production - PNAPO, were built in a participatory manner, in articulation with various spheres of the federal government, listening to the governments of the federative units and their institutions, as well as the segments of civil society, leaders of organizations representing family farmers and social movements, committed to Family Agriculture and with an environmentally oriented production matrix inspired by the principles of agroecology and the agroecological transition. The Postgraduate Program in Organic Agriculture created in 2009 aimed at integrating theoretical and practical knowledge regarding to the conduction of organic production systems, aiming at training and capacity building of professionals to work in the public and private sectors and non-governmental organizations, whether in teaching, research, extension, technical consulting and / or management activities. The program was created at a favorable political moment, where public and private institutions of Ater, social organizations and agroecological movements gained space in the national scenario and demanded studies and expert professionals. The program offers a multidisciplinary team, a framework of research on organic production, validated by professionals from institutions like UFRRJ / Embrapa Agrobiology / PESAGRO, offering multiuse space, the Training Center in Agroecology and Organic Agriculture - CEFAO. This space of dialogue offers conditions for the exercise of the indissociability between research-teaching-extension and ensures greater effectiveness in the processes of training people and generating knowledge. In the perception of the professionals who graduated from this program, there were conditions to develop permanent and continuous educational processes in Organic Production, through a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach and the use of participative methodologies, as well as the socialization of this knowledge through the research and the approximation of popular and scientific knowledge. However, these professionals don't know the National Policy on Technical Assistance and Rural Extension - PNATER and the National Policy on Agroecology and Organic Production - PNAPO, and don't identify themselves as agents of technical assistance and rural extension. Although having actions related to the principles and guidelines of these policies. It was evidenced the necessity of reformulation of the disciplines, of the didactic material and of the greater integration of the faculty, of a greater understanding of the professional role in the context of public policies.