Agriculture and education

In Venezuela, initial education has a school feeding program, which is a social investment whose essential purpose is to guarantee food and nutritional care to the population of children, adolescents and young students of the Basic Education subsystem. One of the objectives pursued by this program is to provide students with a varied, balanced and quality diet on a daily basis through the provision of a contextualized menu, adapted to nutritional requirements, cultural patterns and the availability of supplies in the areas they inhabit, according to the time of year.

Based on this, it is important to point out that the supply of vegetables in some areas depends on the production of other areas surrounding the region, in which a conventional production system is generally used, with the use of agrochemicals of synthetic origin, causing a contamination of vegetables which are provided with traces of said products, which threaten human health. In addition to the destruction of natural resources and biodiversity, these problems have arisen and demonstrate the environmental damage caused by some agricultural production systems, industrial and urban lifestyles, characterized by their high levels of consumption, all this has caused a deterioration of ecosystems which has caused today that the problems are no longer local but global.

For the aforementioned reasons, it is of great importance to generate proposals for the establishment of school gardens under an agroecological management where ecological alternatives are implemented and that simultaneously students and teachers are trained to carry out the activities and tasks that are carried out, in order for the student to understand the interdependence relationships that exist between plants and their surrounding environment, observing the changes they suffer due to chemical and biological factors that intervene in their growth and development and that from this they acquire awareness about the impact of our activities on the balance of the environment and the importance of eating healthy products.

With the establishment and management of school gardens, a teaching-learning process is generated, seeking to strengthen the skills of children in agricultural production practices with an agroecological and sustainable approach, so that they, together with their teachers, socialize their experiences in their communities and homes and in this way contribute to healthy and nutritious nutrition through harvested items such as vegetables. In these initial stages, the child is already involved in agricultural activities, actively participating in planting and caring for crops, which are practices that are usually practiced in the field.

This type of agro-educational activities such as the establishment of school gardens have positive effects, since it encourages teamwork, discipline, perseverance, among others; and awakens interest in nature and ecosystems; through school-age children, the school environment can be influenced so that they adopt the habit of planting in homes that ensures self-consumption and thus meet food needs, with healthy and quality products.

Dear readers, this type of activities leave multiple benefits for society starting from the economic ones because the food itself is produced for school canteens, as well as environmental ones since, ecological practices are taught for food production without altering the soils, water and the environment, also from the social point of view if it extends to the communities it can improve the capacity of families to face food problems. On the other hand, in the gardens, besides vegetables, other products can be generated, such as medicinal plants, among others, which are important for strengthening livelihoods and the family economy.