El rol extensionista en la transición agroecológica el caso de la ganadería familiar en el norte del Uruguay

In Uruguay, livestock farming occupies most of the country's territory, and family farming plays a central role in the productive cycle. There are numerous family livestock producers, on natural fields, who maintain their way of life and preserve their cultural roots, and may be related to an alternative production model to the productivist one, such as the agroecological model. In addition, since December 2019 the country has a law (Law for the Promotion of Production with Agroecological Bases, creation of the Honorary Commission and the National Agroecology Plan) that proposes family producers as main subjects in the promotion of production agroecology in the country. Within this framework, an investigation was carried out that aims to contribute to knowledge about the role of the extensionist in situations of agroecological transition. As a specific objective, it was proposed to analyze the role of technical assistance and rural extension in the agroecological transition from the point of view of the family producers involved, taking as a reference two technological proposals available to promote agroecological livestock production in the north of the country. in the period 2020-2022. One of them involves the biological control of the tick that arises from the Batoví Organic Institute-Uruguay; the other involves the management of the stocking rate and has been proposed through FPTA 345 "From pasture to Meat" and currently promoted by the Instituto Plan Agropecuario through FPTA 356 "Pasture management". To carry out the research, different qualitative techniques were combined in three stages, some of which were carried out in accordance with the pandemic situation. The field work included the participant observation technique in various activities, twenty semi-structured interviews with family farmers, and two in-depth interviews with leading technicians from the institutions whose technological proposals were considered. The results obtained include aspects related to the expectations and experiences on the technical-producer dialogue of family farmers, and the forms of communication and work methodologies used by extension agents, from which the extensionist role is analyzed and discussed to encourage the agroecological transition in family farming.