Reconnecting nature, farming and society: environmental cooperatives in the Netherlands as institutional arrangements for creating coherence

Abstract

An important implication of agricultural modernization has been the break-down of interlinkages between farming, ecology and society. Historically, farming systems evolved from the specific responses of farming communities to local ecological conditions. The totality of regionalized farming systems arising out of this co-production moulded the countryside into an 'archipelago' of differentiated ruralities. During the period of agricultural modernization, the nature of co-production changed thoroughly. The natural elements in co-production were increasingly artificialized or replaced by industrial artefacts. This paper analyses the emergence of environmental cooperatives in the Netherlands as a movement towards a renewed embedding of farming in its local environment. Environmental cooperatives are local farmers associations that promote activities related to sustainable agriculture and rural development and claim to be actively involved in effectuating rural policies in their locale. Since the foundation of the first cooperative in 1992, numbers have rapidly grown to over 100. This paper examines the genesis and practices of environmental cooperatives and assesses their socio-economic and ecological impact. The importance lies most of all, so the authors contend, in that they represent valuable 'field laboratories' for building stimulating and supportive institutional contexts for remodelling Dutch farming along the lines of environmental and economic sustainability.

Confusion and Misunderstanding—Interpretations and Definitions of Local Food

“…In practice, the idea is that production and consumption of goods and services is brought relatively closer geographically [13,14,[17][18][19][20]. Several scholars state that local food systems represent a food system where social-ecological relations are embedded, which is not the case with the global industrial food system [21][22][23][24][25]. This makes the local food system relevant in a resiliency perspective, where socio-ecological systems in practice mean a potential for adaptive capacity among local actors to build a resilient food system.…”

Estrategias para incrementar la participación en programas agroambientales: el papel del capital social

“…En contextos donde no existe dicha compensación, el Banco Mundial ha identificado al capital social como el principal catalizador para la acción colectiva (Sorensen, 2000). Un mayor conocimiento del papel de la confianza podría mejorar los esfuerzos existentes para la promoción de PAA colectivos como la implementación de "cooperativas ambientales" existentes en Holanda (Renting y Van der Ploeg, 2001) o Dinamarca (Hodge y Reader, 2007).…”

Economics and adoption of conservation biological control

“…In the Netherlands, many environmental cooperatives have developed along remarkably similar lines to California's agroecological partnerships. They began in large part as a response to increasing regulatory pressures; they emerge from previous cooperative networks; and they allow farmers to assert more control over their farming decisions (Renting and van der Ploeg, 2001). Other successful partnerships have been developed in the Waipara Valley and in Hawkes Bay in New Zealand where more than 40 winegrowers have adopted existing agroecological protocols and suggested new areas of research.…”