Knowledge diversity in interface situations: the emergence of ecological base's agriculture among family farmers in Southern Rio Grande do Sul
The technical homogenization intended by the modernization of agriculture, well represented by the Green Revolution guidelines, has been associated with negative socio-environmental consequences at rural areas. However, recent proposals which aim to set new dynamics to rural development processes, have been constructed in opposition to conventional diffusionists ideas. With this, proposals and projects that emphasize the local knowledge relevance as part of strategies for rural development have advanced. Researches and actions from several organizations connected to the rural development have gradually emphasized the results from the interaction between local knowledge and knowledge derived from technoscience; this fact allows a new perspective to the role of family farmers in rural areas, a look that encompasses the rising of adaptations and re-arrangements in social and work relationships, new configurations of meanings and reinventions of practices and techniques, especially agricultural ones. In this context, it is considered that changes and innovations are constantly occurring and they are potentially motivating to an active process of emergence of 'novelties', in which local features and the actionof multiple actors are essential. Focusing on these social processes and on the knowledge heterogeneity, it is possible to realize changes in farmers’ relationships to nature and, this way, rethinking the farmers’ role and local knowledge as key elements to achieve sustainable productive alternatives. Based on these ideas and under Actor Oriented Approach framework, the researchaimed to analyze emerging novelties, focusing on farming practices, production systems and social organization, specially considering them as results from interface situations, which put together knowledge and practices from social mediators and family farmers, during the implementation of projects for rural development at São Lourenço do Sul and Pelotas - Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The analysis indicates that these family farmers, oriented by ecological agriculture ideals, supported by technical assistance projects and by public policies, are performing ‘deviant practices’, which represent innovative ways to agricultural processes, to interaction between actors, to relationship with the markets and even to creating new organizations. This way, it was possible to identify the novelty emergence, which can be evidenced through the Cooperativa Sul Ecológica foundation; the construction of new markets, the institutional (school meals) and local(farmers fairs); and the establishment of the Agroindústria Figueira do Prado. The trajectory of emergence of these novelties is related to the discovery of new and relevant resources to overcome conventional production systems, proposing others, based on ecological principles. The development of a 'fine tuning' process is also relevant in using such resources as well as a re-patterning of them by establishing connections between elements before ignored or spaced. These 'novelties' that are broadly related to knowledge sharing, local characteristics, heterogeneity and social action dynamism seem to be indicating changes to development paths at rural areas of southern Rio Grande do Sul.