Agroecology is best learned by doing, playing and belonging, as two experiences from Brazil demonstrate. In Juazeiro, Bahia, the Children’s Circle at the 2025 Brazilian Congress of Agroecology turned childcare into a space where kids first met water, plants and collective care. In Minas Gerais, students from the Federal Institute learned agroecology in the field through community workdays on local farms. Farmers’ knowledge and students’ curiosity came together over planting, repairs, shared meals and reflection circles.
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Playing, planting and learning: the Children’s Circle at the Agroecology Congress
During the 13th Brazilian Congress of Agroecology, held in October 2025 in Juazeiro, Bahia, a different kind of space was growing alongside the lectures and technical discussions. The Ciranda Infantil Ana Primavesi (Ana Primavesi Children’s Circle, or Ciranda) welcomed children – both of congress participants and from the local community – into a space of play, learning and collective care inspired by agroecology.
Named in honour of agronomist Ana Primavesi, the Ciranda offered activities such as art, storytelling, games and hands-on experiences with soil, seeds and plants. Organised through a collective effort involving universities, social movements and civil society organisations, the space hosted around 100 children with the support of educators, facilitators and volunteers.
The Ciranda is much more than simply childcare during the congress: it is a political and pedagogical space for children’s education and participation. Through playful activities, children had their first contact with environmental and social issues, learning about water, soil, plants and collective care. The Ciranda became a space where the principles of agroecology were seeded and strengthened, helping to form children who are attentive to the relationships between society and nature.
Participation in the Ciranda also created opportunities for reflection on education itself. Interaction with natural materials such as seeds and seedlings showed that children’s engagement emerges from experimentation, listening and collective action. Amidst songs, conversations and shared activities, children created their own meanings about care, cooperation and living with their territories. This experience showed that agroecological education is based on lived, practical and shared experiences.
The Ciranda also reinforced the notion that agroecology is also about how we raise children, how we learn together, and how we build communities based on cooperation, care and respect for nature. Spaces like these are small seedbeds where values and relationships are cultivated from an early age, helping agroecology to grow across generations.
Author: Leonardo Denardi Messina is currently a Master’s student in Administration and Society at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar). He is part of a research group on rural management, public policies and agroecology. Contact: ldmessina@estudante.ufscar.br
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Learning through collective work at a Brazilian university
For a group of students in Minas Gerais, agroecology is not only learnt in classrooms, but lived through collective work in the countryside.
Within the agroecology degree programme of the Federal Institute of Southeast Minas Gerais, students and teachers soon realised that understanding agroecology required working alongside farmers. From this need, the Mutirões Agroecológicos were born: collective work days on local farms that became a central part of the students’ learning between 2012 and 2019.
Each mutirão was organised collectively. Farmers shared their needs – planting, soil management or small construction projects – and students and community members came together, often on Sundays, for a day of shared work. These gatherings usually ended with a collective meal and a conversation circle, where experiences and knowledge were exchanged.
Learning happened through doing. Students engaged with farmers’ practical knowledge, while farmers connected with agroecological ideas from the university. For many students from urban backgrounds, this was their first real contact with rural life. As one participant reflected, without the mutirões, much of what they learned about farming and life in the countryside would have remained distant.
The experience also revealed its limits. The continuity of the mutirões depended largely on student initiative, with little institutional support. When organisers graduated, the practice gradually weakened; this was later amplified by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and declining enrolment. Even so, some of these connections continue beyond the university through initiatives such as the ECOletivo Association, which remains active today.
The mutirões showed that agroecology is learnt through relationships between people, land and knowledge systems. Collective work became a way to build connections, share knowledge and learn through lived experience.
Authors: Raquel Ceroni Ferreira works as an environmental technician and permaculture practitioner, focusing on watershed management, geoprocessing and the restoration of degraded areas. Francislian Silveira de Souza is a farmer, agroecologist, environmental educator and communicator specialising in the implementation and management of agroforestry systems and agroecological restoration. Contact: ceroniraquel@gmail.com
These articles are part of Issue 4-2026: Youth leading the way in agroecology.
