Toward sustainability of local development in rural areas: New alternative productive scenarios in General Pueyrredon District, Argentina

ABSTRACT

Argentine intensive and extensive agricultures industry has stood out in recent decades for its accelerated expansion processes linked to the technology package.

In this context, there is a growing consensus, among different social and institutional actors, on the need to find sustainable productive alternatives. Some proposals, such as “sustainable agriculture”, “organic agriculture” or “agroecological agriculture”, provide ideas to contribute to local development, promoting harmonious relations between social actors and nature.

This article explores alternative proposals for extensive agricultural and horticultural farming in the district of General Pueyrredon, Buenos Aires, Argentina, inquiring about the continuities, controversies and conflicts generated by its coexistence.

Previous research was collected and semi-structured interviews were conducted with key informants and farmers.

The “alternative” proposals promote the maintenance of ecological foundations, the well-being of society and individual and collective peace. The development of solutions meets some proposals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030.

KEYWORDS:

• Alternative production systems
• industrial agriculture
• wellbeing
• rural development
• sustainable development goals

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Álvaro Romera for his great contribution to our work and to the farmers of GPD who kindly participated in this study. As well as to the qualified informants who from their knowledge, contributed to targeting new interviewees and valuable information.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. The introduction of improved seeds in wheat, maize, sorghum and sunflower, as well as the massive dissemination of soybeans, meant the adoption of a complex technological package, including mechanical, chemical, biological, and agronomic innovations (transgenic seeds, direct planting, chemical biocides, etc.).

2. The term “sowing pool” refers to an investor association that aims to obtain an economic return through an agricultural holding.

3. Bioinputs refers to biopreparations for the sustainable management of pests and diseases in urban and peri-urban agriculture and focuses on the use of a great diversity of biostimulants, rooting agents, biofungicides, bioinsecticides, biorepellants and biofertilizers made intra-commercially with simple ingredients and with a low cost of production.

4. In terms of Feito (2015), this denomination includes settlers of urban origin or occupation, who determine to live in the countryside and influence the construction of another rurality. Many of these horticultural growers decided to settle in areas of urban-rural interface to work the land based on a revitalizing philosophy of naturalness (Molpeceres et al., 2020c).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Agency for Scientific and Technological Promotion (ANPCyT) [PICT 2018–1682].