A dialogue between innovation studies of economic development and transition studies: an illustration from Argentina’s agriculture sector

ABSTRACT

A dominant perspective within the field of development economics is that structural change away from the industries that developing countries traditionally specialize in, such as agriculture and mining, is necessary to support a broad process of development. In this paper, we ask whether and how structural change within, as well as away from, such industries might help create more economically successful, socially just and environmentally benign trajectories of progress. Combining insights from innovation studies of economic development with ideas from socio-technical transitions studies, we analyse two cases of alternative, potentially transformative agricultural ventures in Argentina. We explore their practices, relative to mainstream ventures, and reflect on their potential to contribute to more sustainable trajectories of change within and out of the mainstream agricultural sector, and the ways in which they can be supported to do so.

KEYWORDS:

• Structural change for sustainability
• agriculture
• Argentina
• transition studies
• innovation studies of development

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the referees and editors for their comments and suggestions, Rocio Palacin for helping prepare the manuscript, and the IDRC and IADB for funding part of the research that this paper draws on.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://opcionessustentables.wixsite.com/recursosnaturales/equipo.

2 http://publications.iadb.org/handle/11319/6955.

3 This description applies to crop production, which explains two thirds of agricultural production in Argentina. Within the remaining third are other activities that operate with slightly different modes of production, but most (95%) are also large scale and input and resource intensive.