Paper Title
AGROECOLOGICAL PRACTICES THAT PROMOTE FERTILITY AND RESTORATION OF THE SOIL WITH AN AGRICULTURAL VOCATION

Abstract
Abstract - The decline in agricultural productivity is largely due to the dramatic loss of fertility and the reduction in soil’s production capacity through a continuous erosion process. In Colombia, tropical soils degradation, affecting mostly smallholders’ families, is mainly because of improper production practices, such as monocropping, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, intensive farming, and the use of transgenic seeds. Agroecology is a science that allows the transformation of conventional production systems into more diversified and self-sufficient systems. The aim of this work was to compare 16 soil samples from smallholders’ farms who already have their own agricultural practices, to ascertain whether agroecological practices (like crop rotation, agroforestry, cover cropping, composting, biological pest control, polyculture, conservation tillage and so on), have the potential to improve and restore tropical soils as a way of promoting sustainability. The farms were divided in 2 groups, Group A: 8 organic farms and Group B: 8 conventional farms.A Complete Randomized Design (CRD) with five replicates for each soil sample was performed, and Student’s t-test by SAS program was applied. Results showed that Group A, which use composting, crop rotation, polyculture and minimum tillage, soil chemical parameters (most micro and macro elements) were significantly different (P<0.05), indicating the beneficial effects of biomass and a more structured and fertile soil. Therefore, recovering soil fertility may help to reduce the soil contamination by chemical inputs andpromote agroecological practices among smallholdersandwhich will also require participatory methodologies and continuous technical support to farming communities to promote sustainability in tropical food production systems. Keywords - Environment ⦁ Smallholders’ Production ⦁Food Production