This article gives an overview of the present day discourses on the sustainable development of Dutch agriculture. It aims to advance rural sociology by illustrating how these sustainability discourses actually contain completely opposing views of the future of the countryside. A qualitative analysis of interviews done with innovators in the agricultural sector indicates that the different discourses on the sustainable development of agriculture are a natural continuation of the different views of rurality previously identified by Jaap Frouws (1998). The redefinition of Dutch agriculture and the Dutch countryside is still contested; each discourse has its own vision on the sustainable development of the sector and the surrounding space. We conclude, therefore, that sustainable development has not functioned as an unifying concept to help different parties overcome their differences and work on win-win solutions. The sustainability agenda seems to have intensified an already slumbering difference of interests and perspectives, with the utilitarian, the agri-ruralist and the hedonist discourse each incorporating their own sustainability perspective. The hedonist and utilitarian discourses in particular aspire to sustainable agriculture on different scales and with opposing arguments. In a many respects they are polar opposites, and this has consequences for the possibility of bringing together stakeholders working towards sustainable agriculture.
ResumoO paradigma da bioeconomia pode ser descrito como o conjunto das atividades econômicas que captam o valor latente em processos biológicos e nos biorecursos renováveis, para produzir melhores condições de saúde, além de crescimento e desenvolvimento sustentáveis. Este artigo faz uma revisão crítica do impacto da bioeconomia emergente sobre o desenvolvimento rural. São descritas algumas das consequências do desenvolvimento rural bioeconômico, na esfera agroalimentar e da inovação regional baseada em uma definição específica -e, de nosso ponto de vista, fraca -de Modernização Ecológica. A questão central, então, é: quais são as bases conceituais, a força impulsora, as expressões empíricas e as implicações do desenvolvimento bioeconômico? Argumenta-se que, embora a bioeconomia faça duras cobranças em relação à sustentabilidade, também deixa lacunas, apresenta alguns efeitos secundários negativos, tanto ambientais como sociais, e corre o risco de ser uma economia parcial. Sustentamos, ainda, que a trajetória do desenvolvimento
This article combines a ‘zoomed‐out’ political economic analysis of Dutch agriculture with a more ‘zoomed‐in’ empirical exploration of small new entrant farmers who are carving out space for alternative food networks and practices in the Netherlands. Developing a concept of proto‐regenerative imaginaries, we define proto‐regenerative farmers as those farmers whose work is driven by a desire to contribute to social and ecological well‐being. The use of the term ‘regenerative’ does not imply just the use of practices associated with ‘regenerative agriculture’, but to regeneration as a holistic framework rooted in a paradigm of care in which productive activities (e.g., agroecology) go hand in hand with the reproduction of social and ecological well‐being. Data comes from an in‐depth ethnographic study on a peri‐urban farm that expanded to other farms and initiatives (n = 5) within the network. Strategies used by farmers to carve out these spaces of regeneration include de‐commodification of their produce through ‘solidarity payment’ schemes, the forging of reciprocal relationships and networks with other farmers, and the use of cooperative resource pooling and municipal resources to access land. All of these strategies help proto‐regenerative farmers to implement radical alternatives to the current mainstream in agricultural production. Such examples, which are not necessarily new, show that the building blocks for building a new paradigm in agriculture (and beyond) exist all around in the form of civic activity, and is too often at a distance from the state. A major challenge for academics is to narrate these proto‐regenerative imaginaries as not just anecdotes, but as the raw materials of a systemic alternative which can inspire a new intellectual project, supported by a state framework for agroecology, rural development, and beyond.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.