Ambience and management workshops of the shaded coffee chacras at Upper Rio Pardo - MG

Abstract

In February 2017, a series of workshops were held under the Bem Diverso project, Embrapa-
UNDP-GEF partner, to carry out a work on the construction of agroecological knowledge
associated with shaded coffee farms. The so-called coffee chacras are traditional agroforestry
systems that exist along the Upper Rio Pardo territory. The criteria for selecting planting
sites, how to recognize a good coffee plantation, and the concepts of stratification and forest
succession applied to its management were studied in the workshops. From this dialogue of
knowledge resulted in the joint construction of knowledge and the growth and empowerment
of communities, broadening their concepts and confirming their ways of doing. The study and
community management of shaded coffee farms was relevant to a better understanding of
their historical genesis and the motivation of the farmers to implant them and manage them in
community.