Concepções de extensão rural por extensionistas do Amazonas

Abstract

Rural extension, as a practical activity of agricultural techniques, is an important axis for understanding the current rural world. The state of Amazonas has many rural producers in all municipalities, demanding rural extension work. Given this, our general objective was:to describe and understand the concepts of rural extension of Amazonian extensionists. Specific Objectives: (1) Map the institutions (universities, government agencies, autonomous social movements and NGOs) that perform rural extension in Amazonas. (2) Translate questionnaire from Spanish to Portuguese and apply it. (3) Identify and discuss extensionist conceptions of rural extension. This was a quantitative research and the instrument was an online questionnaire, consisting of sociodemographic questions related to Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (ATER), and the Beliefs on Extension and Innovation Scale (Likert). Sixty extensionists from 25 to 66 years old participated, being 23% women and 77% men, from 9 institutions that work directly and indirectly with RETA in Amazonas. We use the central tendency measure to characterize the ATER conceptions, we apply the Spearman correlation to evaluate the instrument validity, as the reliability analysis was done by Cronbach's alpha. The results indicated five dimensions of the extensionist conception in Amazonas: 1) Diffusionist M = 3.52 (SD = 0.59); 2) Dialogical M = 4.41 (SD = 0.35); 3) Producer blaming M = 3.50 (SD = 0.63); 4) Self-critical attitude M = 3.90 (SD = 0.59); 5) Participatory M = 4.12 (SD = 0.35). The profile that characterizes the sample by the highest average was the dialogical one. This dimension conceives rural extension and innovation as co-constructed processes, in the different situations in which different actors dialogue, interact and work together horizontally to achieve different ends. Correlation tests confirmed the Likert scale data, showing that the predominant conception of extensionists in this sample is dialogic. With regard to preferences and use of jobs or prioritized action levels, extensionists use work at the individual level more than they prefer and prefer medias rather than use it. Regarding professional identity as a technician RETA: women extensionists have assigned RETA as their primary role in improving the quality of life of farmers through access to basic services; for men, other objectives related to specific technical assistance received equivalent percentages. This indicates a duality between a punctual technical assistance and the need for extension as an educational practice in the field. The extensionists also responded that their productive orientation is decidedly modern conventional agriculture, and that of their institution is perceived as intermediate but with tendencies to modern conventional agriculture. We conclude that because it involves learning, educational, group processes and social interaction between different actors, Psychologies have rich contributions to the issues of rural extensionism, especially in the Amazon region, by setting a plural context, both in relation to the environment and the social issue.