Presenter: Dr Valeria Arza, CONICET – CENIT/UNTREF, Argentina.
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (National Council for Scientific and Technical Research) Centro de Investigaciones para la Transformación (Research Centre for Transformation)
Tres de Febrero University

Date: 13 November 2013
Time: 12:15 for 12:30 – 14:00
 
Argentinean agriculture relies on capital-intensive commodity production for world markets. A challenge for this socio-technical system is to simultaneously deliver improved economic, social and environmental outcomes. Although land productivity has increased, it has done so at the expense of rural displacement, land concentration, environmental degradation and impoverished rural livelihoods. These conflicts are noted by policy makers, and alternative practices have been promoted that seek to add greater value at origin, enhance inclusion and employment and improve environmental sustainability. Alternative practices are not expected to replace the established system, because commodity crop production is an important source of foreign currency and income. The expectation is that both dominant and alternative production systems could be complementary, thereby improving the overall environmental and social sustainability of agricultural production.
 
We discuss the possibilities that these alternative models of agricultural production can co-exist, drawing from the literature on socio-technical transitions, which analyses how alternative practices can emerge, consolidate and diffuse to produce structural changes in socio-technical systems. We illustrate our arguments from case-study information on cotton production in Argentina. Capital-intensive production practices do not suit small farming and as a consequence, the profitability gap between commercial and family farmers has widened, which in turn has increased concentration and displaced farmers to nearby towns. There also exist alternative cotton production practices for small farmers, based on agro-ecological principles, which simultaneously pursue environmental, social and economic goals. We analyse the emergence of those alternative practices in order to highlight issues of conflict and tension that have emerged as they attempt to co-exist with established cotton production systems.
 

Kindly RSVP by 10 November 2013

This seminar may be attended via video conference in Pretoria, Cape Town and KwaZulu-Natal. Details as below.  

Cape Town : HSRC, 12th Floor, Plein Park Building (Opposite Revenue Office), Plein Street, Cape Town. Contact Jean Witten, Tel (021) 4668004, Fax (021) 461 0299, or JWitten@hsrc.ac.za

Durban :  First floor HSRC board room, 750 Francois Road, Ntuthuko Junction, Pods 5 and 6, Cato Manor, Contact Ridhwaan Khan, Tel (031) 242 5400, cell: 083 788 2786 or RKhan@hsrc.ac.za

Pretoria : HSRC Video Conference, 1st floor HSRC Library Human Sciences Research Council, 134 Pretorius Street, Pretoria. Arlene Grossberg, Tel: (012) 302 2811, e-mail: acgrossberg@hsrc.ac.za