‘Post-productivist’ agricultural regimes and the South: discordant concepts?

Abstract

In this paper we review current assumptions about post-productivist agricultural regimesdeveloped largely within a UK/advanced economies frameworkand attempt to answer the question whether the concept of post-productivism can be used to understand contemporary agricultural change in developing world regions. Our analysis is loosely based around six interconnected 'indicators' of post-productivism: policy change; organic farming; counter-urbanization; the inclusion of environmental NGOs at the core of policy-making; the consumption of the countryside; and on-farm diversification activities. We argue that the successful 'exporting' of the theory of post-productivism to the South relies on shared definitions, meanings andultimatelydiscourses of post-productivism. Although similar patterns can be observed in rural areas of the developing world, there is confusion about the exact meaning of complex agricultural/rural activities. Further, our analysis questions the implied linearity of the traditional concept of the productivist/post-productivist transition. Ultimately, a relative assessment of the shift towards post-productivism would circumvent discursive problems related to definitions and meanings of specific post-productivist concepts and indicators. We conclude by arguing that the notion of post-productivism and the developing world are not necessarily 'discordant concepts', but we suggest that the concept needs to be adapted and developed to address specific conditions in the rural South, possibly by combining theoretical approaches surrounding the notion of 'post-productivism' developed largely from a Northern perspective, and 'deagrarianization' from a Southern perspective.

Indicators of post-productivism in South Africa’s “platteland”: A second home case study of Rosendal, Eastern Free State

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“…What is required today is an epistemological fortification of multifunctionality which both validates its place as the best framework for understanding rural change yet reduces it to its constituent parts in order to understand the geographical and longitudinal (and sometimes differing) outcomes present in the myriad case studies from, for example, rural sociology to tourism, while also accounting for the inertia of certain traditional uses even in the light of new and emerging uses, e.g., a consolidating but not retreating agricultural sector. Wilson (2001) argues multifunctionality has global relevance and indeed it is more reflective of pre-modern relationships with the land which included many conditions deemed new in postmodern conceptualisations of rural (read, Western European) landscapes (Wilson & Rigg, 2003). However, Wilson (2001) sets out multifunctionality as trajectories along which individual farm businesses move, ranging between the productive and the non-productive.…”

Farm Families and Future Options – The Role of the Extension Advisory Service in Shaping Irish Agriculture

“…The emergence of this multifunctional countryside projects an 'alternative end-point' that acknowledges that productivist and post-productivist action can occur simultaneously, spatially as well as temporally (Potter, Burney 2002;Wilson 2001;Wilson, Rigg 2003). Potter and Burney (2002: 35) suggest that such multifunctionality can be seen as a method of "producing not only food but also sustaining rural landscapes, protecting biodiversity, generating employment and contributing to the viability of rural areas".…”