EL PARADIGMA CIENTíFICO DE LAS CIENCIAS AGRARIAS: UNA REFLEXION

based on the challenges that are offered today by society, science, technology, and the regional, national and international contexts in which agriculture and rurality are unfolding, it is argued that the paradigms that have sustained the agricultural sciences and professions and their rules and protocols are insufficient for confronting and solving them in an integral fashion. the empirical evidence surpasses the theoretical and assumed limits from which these challenges are analyzed and their solutions proposed. to successfully confront the new challenges and contexts, new paradigms will be required that define a core group of scientific and engineering bases and a minimum unit of study and work. this minimum unit should permit, from a systemic and harmonic perspective, the identification and analysis of the factors that influence the productive processes and their contexts, the work in these disciplines and the formulation of questions and needs. in the agrarian sciences, this change in paradigm could be represented by the agroecosystemic viewpoint, which permits a) the hierarchical organization of the work and research unit and its levels of interaction; b) the presentation of the productive process as a result of the integrated effect of socioeconomic, ecological, cultural, scientific, and technological factors; c) the integral identification of the problems and solutions; d) the breaking of disciplinary limits; e) the responding to demands for an agriculture that is sustainable, competitive, multifunctional, and equitable.