Samenvatting Agricultural and Rural
development
Theme 1: Agrarian and rural development: diversity,
patterns and paradigms
Learning outcomes, being able to:
Describe what is key to a sociological perspective on agricultural development: relations,
structuration (of human action), actor-oriented approach, capacity to act or agency, and
policy, market, technology and civic society (culture) as structuring or ordering principles that
together compose the room for manoeuvre of actors.
Comprehend how the modernisation paradigm has dominated agricultural development
since WOII
Explain how the modernisation paradigm has caused (far-reaching) industrialisation of
agriculture and food provisioning and how the downside of it initiated countermovement
Leading questions for self-study:
What is key to a sociological perspective? What structuring principles can be distinguished?
What is a paradigm? How has agricultural development been (and is) subject to paradigms:
fo example the role of market, technology, and policy?
What are the key differences between an agro-industrial (bio-economy) and an agro-
ecological (eco-economy) development perspective?
Modernisation of agriculture as a major historical project versus modernity as the application
of new techniques
Agri industrial = global, focus on low food, high tech: controlling, excluding nature maximal
production
Agro-ecological= place-based, shorte supply chains, farming with nature, optimum production.
Paradigm: dominant way of thinking that determines making decisions
Agro industrial paradigm = optimal productivity
A sociological perspecti ve on agriculture, food provisioning and rural areas
Agrarian and rural development is inextricably bound up with other current development issues.
Sociological perspectives on Agrarian and rural development:
- Relevance of agriculture and rural areas?
- Normative: what should
- Heuristic: what is ongoing
Basic concepts
Actors perform action or practices: both individuals and collectives
Agency or capacity to act, to make a difference by humans (and nonhumans) => diversity
,Institutions: shared rules in use, diverse modes of ordering
Governance: informal and formal rules coordinating practices
Technologies intervening in and interweaving ‘nature’ and ‘society’
Connectivity: interactions, relations, flows, webs, networks, platforms
Structuration or ordering: hierarchies, organization, power relations and differentiation, continuity,
structural trends, but also ruptures
Change: re-formative and trans-formative practices => change agents
Practices are embedded in a web of three sets of relations:
1) Material resource relations: how, from where and by whom (dead and living material (natural and
artificial) resources are mobilised
2) Socio-cultural relations: shared ideas, values, norms, opinions about what are good, or bad
practices => e.g. clothing, eating
3) Political-economic relations: vested interests, social-material order, domination and intervention,
three structuring principles:
a) public administration (government) and policies (regulatory and supportive schemes);
b) value chain (governance, distribution of value added);
c) science and technology (developed and transferred in education, research and consultancy,
both public and private)
Framework and approaches: Practices embedded in a complex web of three-fold of relations that
shape practices but in turn are shaped by practices => a dynamic working whole, resulting in an
assemblages or ‘landscape’, in which social and natural processes are seamless interwoven by
technology
Wageningen Sociology: 75 years in a nutshell
To understand current issues and debate about the future of agriculture, a historical account is given
of how agriculture has developed since 1950. How a 'productivist' development perspective or
paradigm has dominated since, how agriculture and rural areas have been transformed drastically
,according to this paradigm, also referred to as the modernization of agriculture and countryside, and
how the 'industrialization of agriculture' has resulted in various sustainability issues. The
'productivist' paradigm and resulting agro-industrial mode of production is questioned and
challenged by alternative development perspectives. In debating the future of agriculture, one can
distinguish two opposing and conflicting paradigms to solve sustainability issues: make the agro-
industrial mode of production more sustainable versus a turn to an agro-ecological mode of
production to overcome sustainability issues regarded as inherent to the agro-industrial modes of
production.
'Productivist' development perspective or paradigm =
Agro-industrial mode of production =
Agro-ecological mode of production =
Diverging paradigms: agro-industrial versus agro-ecological development perspecti ve
Transiti oning towards sustainable agriculture
Theme 1 Article 1: Towards a Real Sustainable Agri-food Security and Food Policy:
Beyond the Ecological Fallacies?
Boodschap: Het is noodzakelijk om een creatiever eco-economie-paradigma aan te nemen dat de
landbouw en het beleid ervan verplaatst naar het hart van regionale en lokale systemen van
ecologische, economische en gemeenschapsontwikkeling.
Samenvatting: Het artikel gaat over het huidige agrarische systeem en hoe dit moet veranderen. Het
artikel gaat hierop in aan de hand van key ‘missing links’ bij het opstellen van beleidsdebatten. Dit
zijn sociaal, cultureel, politiek en ruimtelijk ingebed aspecten (zie tabel 1 artikel). Het artikel pleit
voor meer place-based agrarische beleid. Maar om food security zo wel als food sovereignty te
bereiken heeft dit nieuwe place based agrarische beleid, nationale en internationale overheid
instanties nodig om agrovoedselzekerheid en duurzaamheid proactief te integreren in de
binnenlandse, internationale ontwikkeling en het macro-economisch beleid.
, Thema 2: Place-based development strategies: versatile
agriculture and divers livelihoods
Learning outcomes, being able to:
Understand how global (universal) restructuring processes can dominate local
development and how this can result in differentiating, interdependencies, inequalities and
exclusion and this can be countered by place-based development strategies
Global universal restructuring processes can dominate local development because not every place
has the same recourses or grow options it can lead to differentiating, interdependencies, inequalities
and exclusion. By changing this universal structure by implementing place based development
strategy these negative outcomes can be prevented.
Distinguish diverse strategies in land use of households or families in building and securing
a livelihood
Deepening, broadening and re-grounding agriculture. No longer is the focus on scale-enlargement
and industrialisation. This can be done for example by implementing off-farm activities, or choosing
for a specialization in local products. Families can secure a livelihood through involving in different
markets.
“For farming families, rural development represents a
way out of the limitations and lack of prospects
intrinsic to the modernisation paradigm and the
accelerated scale-enlargement and industrialization it
entails”
“In this respect elements such as quality production,
new short chains linking producers and consumers,
organic farming, farmers' management of nature and
landscape, integration of care activities into farms,
involvement in new forms of energy production, agro-
tourism and low cost sustainable farming are to be
seen as crucial building blocks”
Explain how, in cases, actors can built their capacity to act, individually or as a collective, to
achieve the agency required to enlarge their room for manoeuvre and realise their own life
projects.
agency = capacity of actors (as individually or collectively) to attach meaning to and direct
their actions => intentionality
Actors can built their capacity to act by enlarging their agency. Agency is the capacity of actors as
individually or collectively to attach meaning to and direct their actions. They can enlarge their
agency by finding other actors with common meaning. By having more actors with a common goal
they will enlarge their support base (draagvlak) which will give them more room for manoeuvre and
a higher change of realising their own life projects.
Leading questions for self-study:
