Jequitinhonha organic guarantee participatory system: the challenge of participation in times of pandemic

ABSTRACT

The Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) is an organic conformity assessment methodology based on the active participation of interested actors who organize themselves in a network. The Covid-19 pandemic imposed several restrictions on social interaction and, as a result, peer and verification visits, the main social control mechanism used by SPGs, were suspended in 2020. Aiming to maintain the dynamics of interaction and also contribute to reduce the impacts of social isolation on the lives of farmers, the PGS Organicos Jequitinhonha developed a method of remote visits. The objective of this work was to understand how this adaptation took place and what results were achieved. It is an action research, in which the authors actively participated in the implementation of the researched methodology. The researchers highlight as results the social control satisfactorily exercised in a remote system, greater interaction between families, learning in the use of digital technologies that were considered inaccessible by family farmers in Vale do Jequitinhonha.