Diseño de una unidad productiva agroindustrial rural - UPAR con enfoque agroecológico en la finca San Luis, vereda La Granja del municipio de Sasaima Cundinamarca

Abstract

This paper begins by recognizing the reality and challenges of agricultural, livestock, and forestry production in Colombian territory, where the lack of access to land and technological factors for farmers, combined with large estate ownership dominated by extensive livestock farming and monocultures, has hampered competitiveness and led to conflicts between current land use and its intended purpose. This situation causes owners of small land plots to be skeptical about the viability of their production projects, as they have come to believe that the only productive way to develop agriculture is by doing it traditionally, relying on large land expanses for both farming and livestock. It is here that alternatives arise, such as those disseminated by the Andrés Bello Agreement, which gather knowledge about the sustainable management and use of natural resources and align with the principles set by agroecology and the management of agroecosystems. UPARs are integrated agricultural production systems that propose the use of both promising and conventional plant and animal species. One of their core principles is the development of agroindustrial processes that provide self-sustainability for the stakeholders, always aiming to favor the conservation and enrichment of the protective productive forest. This was the approach used to design an Agroindustrial Rural Production Unit - UPAR, at the San Luis farm located in the Sasaima municipality. The first step involved characterizing the environmental baseline, gathering and compiling information from the chosen analysis unit, which was the micro-watershed where the farm is located. Additionally, the main agroecological structure was assessed. Based on the information gathered and the assessment results, environmental zoning and environmental management zoning were established, defining homogeneous areas based on their features and demonstrated environmental sensitivity. Following the environmental management zoning, the agroecosystem design was adapted from the spatial organization proposal from the Andrés Bello Agreement, called agroindustrial productive units for alternative development, considering three integrated subsystems: agricultural, livestock, and protective-productive forest subsystems, applying all the knowledge gathered in the 21 UPAR agroindustrial guides throughout the design phase. As a result, detailed data sheets were obtained for each of the projects, all framed within programs designed for each UPAR component (water, soil, protective productive forest, zootechnical, agrotechnical, and agroindustrial). This established the roadmap that will guide the farm owners in the development of their production activities, always ensuring the care and conservation of natural resources.