Revising the concept of crop health from an agroecological perspective

ABSTRACT : The concept of health has been widely used to refer to soils, crops or agroecosystems. It resembles the idea of wholeness or general well-being, which is interesting to integrate different disciplines. There have been valuable contributions in the area of agroecological management of dise...

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Autores:
Vega, Damián
Gazzano Santos, María Inés
Salas Zapata, Walter Alfredo
Poggio, Santiago
Tipo de recurso:
Article of investigation
Fecha de publicación:
2020
Institución:
Universidad de Antioquia
Repositorio:
Repositorio UdeA
Idioma:
eng
OAI Identifier:
oai:bibliotecadigital.udea.edu.co:10495/29486
Acceso en línea:
http://hdl.handle.net/10495/29486
Palabra clave:
Protección de Cultivos
Crop Protection
Plagas Agrícolas
Agricultural Pests
Malezas
Plant Weeds
Agroecosistemas
Agroecosystems
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_36669
Rights
openAccess
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/co/
Description
Summary:ABSTRACT : The concept of health has been widely used to refer to soils, crops or agroecosystems. It resembles the idea of wholeness or general well-being, which is interesting to integrate different disciplines. There have been valuable contributions in the area of agroecological management of diseases, pests and weeds with the aim of promoting crop health. Nevertheless, they remain relatively disconnected and lack of a comprehensive conceptual framework that helps to define crop health and how to promote it. The aim of this article is to re-conceptualize the notion of crop health from a transdisciplinary and holistic perspective. The system of reference is redefined by including the relationships between the populations of domesticated plants and the farmers. This implies a multidimensional approach and assumes that crop health is related to farmers’ objectives, knowledge, point of views and values. Based on the review of studies in the field of agroecology, four components are proposed to evaluate crop health status: usefulness, adversities, safety and autonomy. Three components of health promotion were adapted from the salutogenic model proposed for human health: meaningfulness, comprehensiveness and manageability. This article intends to make a contribution on theoretical and conceptual aspects of a key concept for agroecology.