In face of the natural effects as a consequence of the pressure of human activity, agroecology now turns into an alternative to mitigate environmental impact.

“Agroecology enables understanding production systems to favor biological resources, its diversity and communities,” said Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNal) in Palmira Professor, Researcher and Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, Jaime Eduardo Muñoz Flórez.

An example of this is the rural proposal –Agreement 01 of the La Habana Peace Talks– for the Colombian post-conflict, which the UNal-Palmira Rural Development Think Tank has addressed.

This is related with the land and its production systems and precisely agroecology is a working alternative, as it couples clean production, in cooperation with peasant networks on fair trade, among other factors which help sustainable production of the land and its resources with greater social fairness.

“This is about answering to the peace talk committees and the government with proposals according to the parameters included in the aforementioned Agreement. In this sense UNal contributes to the project through the experiences of the UNal Agroecology Group,” said Professor Marina Sánchez de Prager, Group Coordinator and in charge of the initiative at UNal-Palmira.

In this manner, agroecology turns into an alternative for a world increasingly more demanding of political volition, investment and consciousness to implement new forms of sustainable resource production.

Last April 22 was the latest celebration Earth Day which is complementary to the signing of the Paris Convention on Climate Change of 2015 in which 196 nations around the world promised to work to reduce the temperature of the planet using several strategies.

However all the previous climate change meetings held in Kyoto, Bali, Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban, Warsaw, Lima, and Paris have failed.

An example of the previous is permafrost (or Artic ice layer) which is frozen for two years or more and covers 16% of the earth’s surface and is fracturing releasing methane gas”, said UNal-Palmira Agronomist Engineer Óscar Rivera Luna.

With respect to Colombia, Riviera says there are still no precise and viable proposals to reduce gas emissions to the atmosphere by 20% and which represent 0.45% of the total planet emissions.

Furthermore between 2015 and 2016, only in the city of Cali there have been 73 neighborhoods impacted by water rationing as a consequence of climate change besides incorrect environmental practices through activities such as tree felling, gold and coal mining and other indiscriminate dynamics.

“In 1964, in a field study in a passionfruit crop, I counted approximately 200 large bees or pollinators of these plants. Last time, which was recently I only counted one; lacewings, monarch butterflies and other insects are gradually disappearing, without talking into account the amount of plants impacted by this phenomenon,” said Rivera.

This balance was showcased at the Agroecological Seminar, "Science, Meetings and Knowledge 11th year", headed by the Agroecology Research Group at UNal-Palmira.

Agencia de Noticias UNAL |