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Organic Farming and Sustainable Rural Development: A Multifaceted and Promising Convergence
Author(s) -
Pugliese Patrizia
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
sociologia ruralis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.005
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1467-9523
pISSN - 0038-0199
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9523.00172
Subject(s) - organic farming , integrated farming , agriculture , sustainable development , context (archaeology) , convergence (economics) , business , sustainable agriculture , environmental planning , environmental resource management , economics , geography , economic growth , political science , archaeology , law
Over the past few years, convergence between organic farming and processes of rural development has been progressively acknowledged and organic practices and practitioners have been effectively involved in various rural development projects. Nevertheless, organic farming's potential contribution to rural development processes has not been explored extensively in the specialized literature. This paper illustrates the manifold synergies existing between organic farming and sustainable rural development, through a specific framework of analysis built on the implicit assumption that both modern, dynamic and multifaceted organic farming systems and rural economies are ‘hybrid and composite networks,’ which can be analyzed according to an evolutionary perspective and to the network analysis approach. The work identifies four main points of communality between organic farming and sustainable rural development: innovation, conservation, participation and integration. All of them are critical aspects in current strategies for sustainable rural development, and, at the same time, key features of modern organic farming ideology and practices within an eu context.