Sustainable development on the context of new ruralities: The case of the Biodiversity Conservation Project in Argentina

Abstract

Ecological knowledge for decision making must include an understanding and analysis of social dimensions. Based on the Biodiversity Conservation Project (PCB – Proyecto de Conservación de la Biodiversidad), which promoted sustainable development in four poor communities in the Central Andes of Argentina, this paper highlights the relevance and importance of looking at transitions and livelihoods in order to understand small farm systems and rural settings in a context of globalization, structural transformations and the emergence of ‘new ruralities’. The concept of ‘new ruralities’ refers to the new, developing organizational forms and agrarian structures for combining natural resources, labour and capital. The global agro-food regime that emerged with the expansion of the market oriented economy since the nineties and the increasing concentration of land and economic control with agroindustrial corporations initiated a process of rural transformation which has been called ‘new ruralities’ in Latin America (for details see Teubal 2002, Echeverría 2000 and Arce 1999). Part of this process has been the ‘disappearing peasantry’ (Bryceson et al. 2000): small farmers have reduced their participation in the economy as large producers, agricultural corporations and investors concentrate land use and economic power. However, the macro-vision of these transformations does not help us to understand how people weave their way through, make sense of and live out such structural transformations. The PCB is an opportunity to analyze not only the different types of farmers and productive strategies (synchronic analysis) but also the trajectories of transformation (diachronic analysis).