Practices for the redesign of agroecosystems for the ecological management of pests and diseases

Abstract

An alternative for the management of pests is the vegetation and habitats diversification within
the agricultural landscape, a practice commonly adopted in an agroecological system production,
aiming at favoring ecosystem services such as biological control and pollination. In
order to promote the training of extension technicians, Emater carried out a course in order to
describe the main species of plants used for the properties diversification in the region with the
description of the advantages and disadvantages of each plant. The activity was divided into
five discussion stations, where the participants were able to report experiences with agroecological
practices such as the use of external and internal barriers to production areas; soil conditioning
plants; use of consortium and polyculture and management of spontaneous plants.
Different positive and negative experiences have been reported and worked out to create a
guiding document for technicians, farmers and other stakeholders as a practice recommended
by trained and scientifically backed technicians.