Local Innovation Ecosystems to Strengthen Agroecology in Colombia

The Preliminary Case of LabCampesino of Tierra Libre

Abstract

This article aims to share the preliminary experience of the Laboratorio Campesino for the transition to the Agroecology (Lab Campesino) of Tierra Libre in the municipality of Fusagasugá, Republic of Colombia. Particularly, the use of the concept of the local innovation ecosystem in the territory as a framework to identify the actors, interrelations, and elements of these decentralized innovation networks, to generate strategies for their collective realization. To this end, a series of questionnaires were applied to determining actors from various social sectors related to Tierra Libre and its action in agroecology. The objective was to identify the values, policies, knowledge, infrastructures, and the natural environment that sustain communal innovation processes. The results of this analysis allow us to understand the opportunities and challenges faced by the actors to promote innovations in agroecological practices in the territory of the province of Sumapaz, Cundinamarca.