© Equipo de Periurbanos y Agroecología

With the help of a playful program, with the "chin chon" cards, FAO and different public and private entities promote the agroecological model in small-scale farms.

"The current challenges highlight the urgent need to accelerate the transformation of food and agricultural systems towards sustainability. Holistic approaches, such as agroecology, have the potential to reconcile the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability. FAO's Strategic Framework 2022-2031 focuses on the transformation towards more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agri-food systems, contributing to better production, nutrition, a better environment and a better life, leaving no one behind," stressed Tito Efraín Díaz, interim representative of FAO Argentina.

One of the main commitments undertaken was to achieve a "dialogue" between the theoretical contents of agroecology and the knowledge of the actors in the territory, for which a playful-reflexive dynamic was defined based on the "chin chon" card game, whose cards include the 10 elements of agroecology and were designed with colloquial language, illustrative images, keywords, examples and photos of the participating producers.

Luis Narmona, from the National Agroecology Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture and a member of the Peri-urban and Agroecology Team (EPA), explained that to evaluate the results of the agroecology model, they implemented the Tool for the Evaluation of Agroecological Performance (TAPE), which was developed by FAO in collaboration with other actors.

"This system allows a diagnosis of agroecological systems through the analysis of 10 key characteristics, linking productive, social, economic, environmental, cultural and political aspects. It also makes it possible to monitor each production system in particular," he explains.

The process involved 5 producer families that participated in the Agroecological Fair of Córdoba, in a gradual learning process (through workshops) and also the training of the members of the Peri-urban and Agroecology Team, which comprises professional researchers and extensionists from INTA, INTI, among other organizations.

Narmona explained that the integral measurement of the impact of agroecology represents "an opportunity to generate socio-technical innovations in the evaluation of agroecological productive systems or those in transition, and promotes the protagonism of the producers themselves, to build a framework for evaluating the performance of their systems and a collective knowledge of the general situation, on the advances in agroecology in each one of them".

"We produce taking care of the environment, the land and health, and our farm is open for everyone to come and see it with their own eyes because in agroecology the only 'certification' we have is the trust of those who buy from us," concluded Natalia Córdoba, a vegetable producer on 25 hectares located south of the city of Córdoba.