Analysis of the structure and function of an agroecological lighthouse. The case of the Los Álamos Agroecological Education Center SUMMARY

Abstract

Abstract

Objective: Determine if the Los Alamos Agroecological Education Center (CEA) meets the elements of structure and function to be identified as an agroecological lighthouse.

Design/methodology/approach: A CEA case study was constructed to understand both the context and the structural and functional characteristics that are currently configured. In a second stage, a comparative analysis of the structural and functional characteristics of the agroecological lighthouses was performed with the data generated in the case study. In the third stage, the factors that allow or prevent the CEA from developing as an agroecological lighthouse will be analyzed. The whole of the research was carried out with a mixed approach (quantitative and qualitative).

Results: The CEA performs and fulfills in the youth sector, the characteristic function of agroecological lighthouses as it is an effective tool for education, training, exchange of knowledge and promotion of agroecology, favoring the dissemination and scaling up in the peasant communities where young people come from who participate in the CEA.

Limitations on study/implications: The results are only applicable to the case under study due to the limitations of this methodology in that its results do not allow the elaboration of general explanations.

Findings/conclusions: The CEA has enough elements to classify it as a sectoral agroecological lighthouse, which is providing a methodological and strategic light to respond to the challenge of the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, knowledge and agroecological projects in the rural indigenous youth field.

Keywords: Agroecology, agroecological lighthouse, social and rural development.