Provas de validação no enfoque sistêmico: um estudo entre os pequenos produtores das terras baixas da Bolívia

Abstract

The small farmerofthe tropics emploise complex management systems ofhis farms in order to accommodate himselfand to face environmental, market and family labor availability conditions. Presentation oftechnological proposals to this rank has been very frequent, without taking into account that complexity or the socio-economical objectives unique to the farmer, being that a few times they are adapted to the conditions of his farming. Consequences of these omissions are the poor leveisoftechnology adoption. This situation, source ofgreat failures in the establishment of farming projects, has given place to the evolution inthe research approaches and farming development, starting from an early emphasis inthe association ofspecialized disciplinary studies with a growing present demand for inter-disciplinary studiesofintegral and systemic approach. For such reasons, the Tropical Agricultural Investigation Center (TAIC) ofBolívia ô is accomplishing a change process from its traditional research methods for to the systemic approach. The discussions around this new approach strengthen the importance of carrying the investigation taking as the center the farmer, his aims, his demands, his goals, his circumstances, having to consider his farm as a whole. This new process - Investigation in Agricultural Systems (IAS) - requires not only structural changes but also researcheres and extensinists' changes ofofbehaviors and attitudes, in the sense ofinverting the view that they have ofthemselves, judging themselves experts with higher status and owners ofknowledge. As a strategy to the strengthening ofthe systemic approach within TAIC, the Center establishing validation tests or adaptation of technology to the small farmer's circumstances in which the researcher acts asa facilitator ofthe learning process. IAS focuses agriculture as a human activity system and proposes the use of methodologies, as the validation tests to correct failure, taking advantage ofresources that fit to the nature of each problem and to the views that persons share about the above - quoted resources. In spite ofthe great efforts which are done within TAIC, the adjustment ofthe technology proposed in tests has still been very slow. One ofthe causes ofthat situation is the prevalence of an unnecessary dependence upon high cost externai factors (credit, fertilizers, agrotoxical, allowances, etc.) to both farms and country communities, to which only a minority of farmers has access. Farmers are not the only responsible for the poor leveis oftechnology adoption. Indeed, experience shows that, most times, are the agencies oftechnology generation and transfer which do not present proposals which meet the needs, characteristics and circumstances ofsmall * production. To propose real solutions, this research points to the need for professionals who on the one hand may be capable ofdeveloping productive modern systems and, on the other hanc^ may propose alternatives to the complex productions systems ofsmall farmers. This requires a» great amount ofcreativity and a real capacity to solve the real problems ofthesetwo groups.