Principles and Projections of Agroecological Commercialization: Views from Valparaíso Region

Abstract

Agroecological food production and consumption face multiple potentialities and barriers scenario to overcome in a context of crisis, uncertainty, and socio-political changes, at national and planetary levels. It pursues to problematize, from the perspectives of male and female actors, the relevant dimensions that allow understanding the current state of agroecological commercialization, as well as its future directions. This text explores these paths based on qualitatively collected information, through in-depth individual interviews with producers and consumers of some type of short food commercialization circuits in the Valparaíso Region, Chile. These speeches highlight the importance of the articulation between producers and consumers, the recovery of collective projects, the valorization of trust as a certification mechanism, together with the need to move forward to a critical or transformative consumption. At the same time, it problematizes certain elements that are key to understanding the future scenario, such as the capacities present in the territories, their temporalities that are not immediate and regular, the dynamic and non-linear conception of these processes, and their conflicts.