10593 - Contribuição da Educação a Distância para a formação de Extensionista Ru- ral Agroecológico Contribution of Distance Education for the training of rural extension Agroecological

The implementation of the National Policy to Technical Assistance and Rural Extension - PNATER, was built in a participative way in 2003 and was transformed in an instrument to stimulate changes in the profile of rural extension professional. The perfor - mance that is expected from them demanded a review in their formation, which started to be made by the Team of Formation from ATER Department of MDA (Ministry of Agrarian Development). In this context, the objective of this work was to analyze how the distance learning is contributing to enable Brazilian rural professionals in an agroecological per- spective and what are its strengths and weaknesses. We did a search of two courses about Improvement in Agroecology, using distance learning tools and offered by MDA/SAF (ATER Department) in cooperation with Berkeley University (USA) and REDCAPA in 2006 and 2007. The research shows, in a clear way, a strong contribution from distance learn - ing to formation in Agroecology, ensuring not only an improvement in participants knowl - edge and skills, likewise the possibility to maintain quality and reaching a much larger amount of people that want to learn about Agroecology.