Participative certification and agroecology: process of organization and peasant resistance in “Mata Paraibana”

Abstract

The topic approached by this research is the rural resistance against capitalist agriculture. We analyze a peasant organization whose production is agroecologic and the commercialization of the products is done directly to the consumers as a strong strategy of resistance that allows the (re)construction of the basis of the rural reproduction and the construction of new paradigms of sustainability. The experience studied is the Agroecologic Fair that take place in João Pessoa (PB), in the campus I of the Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB), that commercialize products coming from four rural settlements located alongside the Paraiba river, in the districts of Cruz do Espírito Santo, Sapé and Sobrado, and a rural settlement located in the South Coast of the state of Paraiba – district of Conde. We observed the strengthening of the Fair by the use of a certification project, granted to the agroecologic products through a common effort of production control that involves producers, consumers, technicians, government and civil society