Agricultural products feed a growing world population at the expense of natural resources, causing immense losses to the different ecosystems, soil and water. The degradation of the ecosystems causes crops to collapse; consequently, the common response is to use technological packages that include high yield varieties (varieties which have been genetically manipulated), synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, causing more and more serious problems.

The organic agriculture movement seeks to solve this global problem before finding sufficient practical answers adaptable to tropical ecosystems.

The course Successive agriculture - a new path to ecological agriculture, is a practical and theoretical answer to many of the current questions poised today regarding organic production in humid tropics.

This proposal seems, and it actually is, very simple. What we must do is learn how to correctly "see" and interpret the dynamics and operation of a given ecosystem. In turn, this will give us the instruments and the information that will tell us "what to do". For example, in order to give shade to an originary crop from a primary forest, we must use a species with the same characteristics and functions as the ones prevalent in its natural environment. The so-called "weeds" are no longer something that must be fought; on the contrary we use them to make our systems more dynamic and to increase soil fertility. The same is true for pests and diseases, which we no longer fight, we simply understand them as indicators that reflect the health of our agro-forest systems and whom we use to improve the system as a whole.

Each ecosystem has its own dynamics for the succession of species. These dynamics are different for primary forests and agro-ecosystems, but responds to the same principles that we recognise and validate for ecological agriculture:

• Dense plantations
• Occupation of all niches
• Selective weeding
• Acceleration of the carbon flow by incorporating organic matter into the soil
• Stratification, adequate consortiums of species and synchronisation of the ecosystem
• Acceleration of natural succession processes by rejuvenating the system

The principles underlying the natural succession of species were formulated, systematised and practised by Ernst Götsch during his work as a farmer in north Bahia - Brazil. For a couple of years now, these same principles have been used by different groups of small farmers in Alto Beni - Bolivia.

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