Residency period: March 3 to December 31, 2025
Institute of Agricultural Sciences of UFMG
Eduardo Magalhães Ribeiro holds a degree in Economics from UFMG and a master’s and doctorate in History from Unicamp. He was a professor at UFLA until 2009, and since then he has been a professor at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. He is a full professor and CNPq researcher. He is a member of the board of the UFMG/Unimontes Associate Master’s Program in Society, Environment and Territory, and leader of the research and rural extension group Núcleo de Pesquisa e Apoio à Agricultura Familiar, which operates in the North and Northeast of Minas Gerais with research and extension projects supported by several funding agencies. At UFMG, he coordinates the extension program “Sítio de Saluzinho”, dedicated to introducing the rural world to elementary school children. He is the author of “Histórias dos gerais” (Editora UFMG, 2010) and “Do engenho à mesa” (Editora UFMG, 2019), among other works. It works on topics such as family farming, rural extension, semi-arid regions and rural development.
FAMILY FARMING, WATER AND DROUGHT IN THE SEMI-ARID REGIONS OF MINAS GERAIS
Since the 1990s, farmers in the semi-arid region of Minas Gerais have noticed that there is less water, uncertainty about rainfall, excessive precipitation, and loss of capacity of streams and creeks to supply rural communities, guarantee irrigation, and ensure a continuous supply of water to rivers. Local perceptions, based on knowledge derived from the proximity of daily work and the environment, have generated social and political demands that have resulted in the creation of public rural supply programs and the development of water supply technologies. These collective actions have yielded good results in terms of supply, although they keep the rural population in permanent water insecurity and have a significant impact on public finances, especially those of municipal governments. At the beginning of the 21st century, water appears in union, political, and cultural demands with the emphasis that deserves a topic that has ceased to be insignificant, discreet, and commonplace, and has become a central issue. The objectives of this project are (i) to gather and systematize the production of the proponent, his research group and his advisees on the Semi-Arid Region of Minas Gerais, (ii) to produce synthetic texts on the situation of water and droughts in these regions, (iii) to discuss interdisciplinary aspects of these studies with research groups from UFMG, Unimontes and IFNMG, (iv) to convert the final product into training workshops, seminars and courses, and (v) to edit and deliver to the UFMG Press, by the end of 2025, a book on the subject. Using an interdisciplinary approach and maintaining a connection between research, teaching and extension, this project is expected to take the analysis of the Semi-Arid Region of Minas Gerais to new levels, proposing bases for training people, creating new bibliographical references and collaborating in the formulation and evaluation of public programs.