Agroecology was born as a consequence of the need of human beings to produce food to maintain themselves as a species, but without destroying or minimizing the impact that agricultural activities have on the environment on a global scale. From the etymological point of view, the word ecology is a compound word: "agroecology" is formed by Greek roots and means "agriculture that takes care of the relationships between living beings and their environment". Its lexical components are: agros (field, land in its natural state) and oikos (house), plus the suffix -logía (science that studies). Agroecology is a scientific discipline, a set of practices and a social movement, according to the definition of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).