Abstract
Rural and agricultural modernization and industrialization (RAMI) increased in recent decades in a multiscalar way. RAMI has implied the rural landscape transformation through the arrival of industrial models. These processes have not been linear or unidirectional; heterogeneities, opposites, mosaics, hybridizations, new interactions, problems, and tensions, between traditional and industrial agriculture and other agriculture types, have emerged. We tackle and problematized the RAMI processes, which is a complex and a real-world problem, from Sustainability Science (SS) and transdisciplinarity. Thus, considering studies and experiences in different rural areas in the world, an epistemological positioning is presented, which allows overcoming scientific frontiers and relating it to rural sustainability. We delve into the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin (LPB), Mexico, an area with a strong agricultural tradition (“milpa” systems). Recently, the presence of industrial agriculture (mainly avocado monoculture and berry greenhouses) has increased, occurring the coexistence between peasant-entrepreneurs, indigenous–non-indigenous, and new-rural. The article aims to understand comprehensively the emerging complexities from the RAMI, deepening LPB’s real case. The epistemological approach developed allow us to conceive the interaction and possible complementation between traditional agriculture, industrial agriculture and other agriculture types, and the emergence of an included middle that corresponds to an “emerging complexity”. Finally, relevant topics and questions are highlighted.
Highlights
This paper addresses the real case of the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin (LPB), Michoacán, Mexico
Like the evolution of science, rather than accumulating information on traditional and industrial agriculture, and the effects of Rural and agricultural modernization and industrialization (RAMI), it is crucial to address the problem from an adequate approach
While at the PU scale there is a transition from traditional agriculture to industrial agriculture through the incorporation of traits of the latter, and the interaction and combination of different types of agriculture, at higher scales, such as basin, region, or other territorial unit, larger industrial PUs arrive that transform the rural landscape and emerge tensions and problems such as subjugation, land grabbing and dispossession by actors external to communities, concentration of capital, exclusion and insecurity, and loss of autonomy and food security
Summary
The article aims to understand comprehensively the emerging complexities from the rural and agricultural modernization and industrialization (RAMI), concerning traditional agriculture and sustainability, proposing an epistemological positioning for that and deepening LPB’s real case. This study contributes mainly to (1) an epistemological approach which, incorporating elements of transdisciplinarity and the paradigm of complexity (axioms of levels of reality and perception and of the included middle, and dialectics), and integrating different knowledge, visions, and actions, allows to perceive and incorporate the coexistences and interactions between opposites (as traditional and industrial agricultures) and hybridizations (incorporations of industrial agriculture’ traits in traditional productive units (PUs)), possible complementations and tensions between different types of agriculture, and the emerging complexities, addressing RAMI in an comprehensive way;. (2) a synthesis of studies and experiences in different rural areas in the world related to RAMI; and (3) the application of the epistemological approach and the synthesis of studies and experiences in the real-world case of LPB, considering its cultural, social, political, and environmental particularities and complexities
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