PPGAO’s visual identity is based on the logo1 created for the II Encontro Brasileiro de Agricultura Alternativa (II EBAA), held in the municipality of Petrópolis (RJ), in 1984. ‘Alternative agriculture’ was the term used at the time to refer to refer to currents of biological, organic, ecological, biodynamic agriculture, among others. Promoted by the Association of Agricultural Engineers of the State of Rio de Janeiro (AERJ) in partnership with UFRRJ and other entities, the II EBAA brought together professors and researchers, exponents of alternative agriculture in Brazil and abroad. The discussions elected key points for the advancement of alternative agriculture and among these, there was consensus on research gaps based on evidence in production systems based on biological processes; and the need to build differentiated markets for the insertion of family farmers and the appreciation of products.

In the words of Ana Primavesi, recorded by Virginia Mendonça Knabben in the biographical work “Ana Maria Primavesi: Histórias de Vida e Agroecologia”( p.403) “They had invited everyone who gave some support to organic agriculture and organized a huge meeting in the old casino from Petropolis. It was really bad, because it was an incredible mess, which took over a good part of the casino.”

In fact, the II EBAA was notable for the presence of very important people for the development of Alternative Agriculture, especially Claude Aubert, Johanna Döbereiner, Dejair L. de Almeida, Raul de Lucena Duarte Ribeiro, Ronaldo Salek, Ernest Goetsch, Francisco Graziano Neto, João Batista Dematté, Sebastião Pinheiro, Yoshio Tsuzuki, José Lutzemberger, among others. Professor Antônio Carlos de Souza Abboud, one of the founders of PPGAO, participated in the organization of the II EBAA and signed the chapter on Green Fertilization (p.175).

Also present at the II EBAA were 24 Secretaries from eleven states of the Federation – Espírito Santo, Goiás, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Pará, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and São Paulo who were signatories of the Petrópolis Charter. In this Protocol of Intent signed on April 4, 1984, the Secretaries committed themselves to developing Alternative Agriculture in their respective states through various objectives, highlighting the support and redirection of research, the dissemination and use of more suitable agricultural alternatives to the national reality, respecting its regional peculiarities.

In the same year as the meeting, the Association of Biological Farmers of the State of Rio de Janeiro (ABIO) was founded, with UFRRJ Professor Raul de Lucena Duarte Ribeiro (in memoriam) being one of the founding members and its first secretary. ABIO aims to contribute to the expansion of the organic movement, which at the time of its creation was incipient in the country. Today, ABIO’s actions are aimed at stimulating organic production based on agroecology, sustainable development, in particular to strengthen family farming, small production and sustainable organic extractivism, based on the principles of agroecology.

Another important event that contributed to the organizational and institutional environment for the production of organic products in the state of Rio de Janeiro was the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Conference had diplomatic consequences. , politicians and in the environmental area, in addition to proposing itself as a space for debates and guidelines for sustainable development.

In this context, Fazendinha Agroecológica Km 47 was founded in 1993, which was conceived as a space for the exercise of alternative agriculture, in an innovative way of doing agronomic research – with a systemic focus and inter-institutional partnership. Researcher Dejair Lopes de Almeida (in memoriam) approved the first project in the area of ​​organic agriculture at Embrapa which, from the beginning, had the partnership of UFRRJ professor Raul de Lucena Duarte Ribeiro (in memoriam) and researcher Silvio Romero de Carvalho (in memoriam) of Pesagro-Rio.

Coordinated by a Management Committee formed by UFRRJ, Colégio Técnico da UFRRJ, Embrapa and Pesagro-Rio, Fazendinha has an area of ​​70 hectares under organic management, divided into subsystems for intensive production of vegetables, seedlings, dairy farming, laying, fruit-vegetable plots, roots and fruit growing, agroforestry systems, forest fragments and ecological corridor. The food produced is sold to the University Restaurants, which serve more than 5,000 meals daily on the Seropédica and Nova Iguaçu UFRRJ campuses. The Fazendinha annually receives more than 1,500 people, including students of technical courses, undergraduate, graduate, professors, extension workers and farmers.

In addition to ecological issues, Fazendinha was planned as a system capable of meeting the economic and social needs of organic farmers. Family farming, predominant in the state of Rio de Janeiro, with productive diversification in small areas2 was considered as the social basis. From the beginning, it was imperative to develop appropriate technologies, select genetic materials, study production systems, ensuring satisfactory productivity, product quality, ecological benefits and economic returns capable of promoting the social reproduction of the units. With more than 50 technologies developed, Fazendinha has become a reference, recognized nationally and internationally. Hundreds of courses were promoted to transfer technology to farmers and professionals who increasingly sought theoretical and practical basis to develop agriculture on an agroecological basis.

Still in 1993, there was a multidisciplinary team at UFRRJ that dealt with the insertion of Agroecology in the curriculum of UFRRJ and it had some of the professors who were or would become part of the PPGAO, such as professors Raul De Lucena Duarte Ribeiro (in memoriam), and José Guilherme Marinho Guerra (Embrapa Agrobiology). This team promoted several debates and produced a series of documents that resulted in the opening of a teaching position in the Department of Plant Science for the area of ​​Agroecology. The vacancy was occupied in August 1994 by the then recent doctor Antonio Carlos de Souza Abboud, who presented at UFRRJ the proposal for the creation of the PPGAO, elaborated in partnership with professors and researchers from Embrapa Agrobiologia who still work as professors today.

In 2003, organic agriculture was institutionalized in the country, with the enactment of Law No. 10,831 of December 24, defining concepts, objectives and mechanisms for guaranteeing organic quality. They gathered under a single term – organic agriculture – all alternative agricultures, as a market-oriented strategy. Normative instructions were prepared for the different scopes of production. As of 2002, with an institutional and organizational environment of stimulus, public policies were designed with the dual purpose of guaranteeing the human right to food and nutritional security and, at the same time, stimulating family farming on agroecological bases by generating income and work decent infrastructure and technical assistance with the National Policy for Technical Assistance and Rural Extension.

In Rio de Janeiro, ABIO, closely linked to the group of professors and researchers working at Fazendinha, was accredited by INMETRO in 2003, organic agriculture was institutionalized in the country, with the enactment of Law No. concepts, objectives and mechanisms for guaranteeing organic quality. They gathered under a single term – organic agriculture – all alternative agricultures, as a market-oriented strategy. Normative instructions were prepared for the different scopes of production. As of 2002, with an institutional and organizational environment of stimulus, public policies were designed with the dual purpose of guaranteeing the human right to food and nutritional security and, at the same time, stimulating family farming on agroecological bases by generating income and work decent infrastructure and technical assistance with the National Policy for Technical Assistance and Rural Extension.

In Rio de Janeiro, ABIO, strictly linked to the group of professors and researchers working at Fazendinha, had been accredited by INMETRO as a certifier until 2010, when it began to act exclusively as a Participatory Organization for Conformity Assessment (OPAC), and then, accredited by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply. Today, this entity certifies farmers, producers and extractivists through the participatory guarantee system (SPG) that encourages the construction of knowledge, associativism and shared responsibility regarding organic quality among its members.

ABIO bringing together its members and based on several partnerships – with the city of Rio de Janeiro, Pesagro-Rio and other entities, created the Carioca Circuit of Organic Fairs, coordinating 13 fairs in the municipalities of Rio de Janeiro and Niterói. Direct sales at fairs came to remedy a critical point for the growth of organic agriculture which, as it was linked to family units, had not been viable in serving large retail chains. Combining direct sales channels, increased income and consumer demand, organic agriculture continued to grow in the state of Rio de Janeiro and, consequently, the demand for training and qualification courses for professionals, who sought to get in touch for the first time time, with formal teaching in the field of organic agriculture.

Fazendinha was 16 years old when the PPGAO proposal was drawn up and was already considered a practical classroom for the disciplines of Technical Courses at CTUR, undergraduate and graduate academic programs at UFRRJ – Soil Sciences (CPGCS) – and Fitotecnica (PPGF) with significant scientific production. Thus, with maturity, experience and technical-scientific quality of the faculty, the PPGAO was conceived in the professional modality, aiming to meet the growing demand for training professionals to work in organic agriculture.

It appears from this history, the principle that brought together in the PPGAO, the participation of the three institutions. Thus, the permanent faculty is formed by 50% of professors from UFRRJ and 50% from Embrapa Agrobiologia and Pesagro-Rio. All professors work in Organic Agriculture and have training and experience in different areas and specialties such as: Phytotechnics, Soil Science, Microbiology, Ecology, Phytopathology, Agricultural Entomology, Food Technology, Economics, Applied Social Sciences.

Upon completing 10 years in 2020, PPGAO stands out as the Postgraduate Program with the highest number of enrollments in UFRRJ public notices. This demand has remained high since the beginning of the course, registering the highest number of applicants (120) in 2017, even without scholarships or any financial aid to students, which really reflects the existing demand and the importance of PPGAO for the society.

Since its creation, PPGAO has developed research of interest to the development of organic agriculture with local and regional emphasis. Even today, the PPGAO’s vocation and actions are strong, linked to its context in the state of Rio de Janeiro, but also to the current demands for research and innovation for organic agriculture and the agroecological transition at the national level.

The PPGAO is headquartered at km 7 of BR 465, the old Rio-São Paulo road, in the municipality of Seropédica, RJ, having as close neighbors the National Center for Research in Agrobiology of Embrapa (Embrapa Agrobiologia) and the State Center for Research in Agriculture Organization of the Agricultural Research Company of the State of Rio de Janeiro (PESAGRO-RIO) and the Local Seropédica Office of the Company of Rural Extension and Technical Assistance of the State of Rio de Janeiro (EMATER-RIO).

The municipality of Seropédica is located in Baixada Fluminense in the metropolitan region of the state of Rio de Janeiro and comprises 13 municipalities with 13% of the total population of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The estimated population of this territory in 2020 (IBGE, 2020) was 3,832,411 people, with an average demographic density of 3,038 inhab/km2, average per capita GDP of 25,838 and average HDI of 0.7013.

This region had agricultural activity as a base of economic and social support until the end of the 19th century, entering post-slavery decay. Throughout the 20th century, the Baixada became an urban periphery, with dormitory towns, in which urban and rural areas have very narrow boundaries. Family farming resists in agricultural practice, reinventing itself in new ruralities, such as organic food production linked to participatory guarantee systems and direct sales.

Agricultural activity is carried out in dystrophic soil conditions and unfavorable climate, with a dry winter, high temperatures, intense rains and dry spells in the summer. It should also be noted that the social demands in the Baixada are broad and complex, requiring an investigative look on the part of the public university in order to emphasize the commitment of this institution with the process of generating knowledge present in the social dynamics, in which family farming in agroecological bases is an important pillar to be re-signified and valued, to which the PPGAO makes a fundamental contribution.

The state of Rio de Janeiro stands out as the second largest vegetable market in Brazil, also standing out in the production of vegetables in this segment. Despite the excessive use of pesticides, a reality to be seriously faced, agriculture in Rio de Janeiro has been converging towards more sustainable systems. In view of the vigorous growth in the number of certified organic producers in the state and the importance of the Circuito Carioca de Feiras Orgânicas managed by ABIO, among other entities.

The most notable experiences of organic agriculture in the state of Rio de Janeiro are the result of the work of people who actively participated in the alternative agriculture movement in the state, contributing to research and teaching institutions as a result of this conjunction, the municipality of Petrópolis, through the Law No. 8.118 of September 25, 2018, won the title of “State Capital of Organic Products”.

Thus, it is from this context that most of the students of the UFRRJ and PPGAO courses come and it is for this scenario that part of the research linked to the Program is developed. The integration of PPGAO with society and the labor market converges in these territories and has also been provided by the absorption of students, professionals who work in organic agriculture in different organizations/entities in the country and who have research problems related to the different realities where they work .