LOCAL INSTITUTIONS AND INITIATIVES TOWARDS VULNERABLE POPULATION IN A CONTEXT OF A REDEFINED RURALITY

CRAVIOTTI, CLARA

Simposio; Symposium Innovation and Sustainable Development in Agriculture and Food; 2011

In the Pampas region, deep changes in rurality and agrarian structure are associated with the development of self-employment initiatives of agricultural production on the part of vulnerable population living in small towns. The aim of this paper is to examine the nature of these initiatives in their interplay with institutional aspects, taken into account qualitative and quantitative data generated by a research project carried on four localities, which are non-core and low population areas. The resistant and innovative nature of the initiatives developed in relation to the modernization paradigm currently in place in the Pampas region is also considered. At the micro level, research has shown the different strategies deployed by vulnerable agents to face barriers of entrance to agriculture, highlighting the importance of additional sources of income that allow them to cope with family expenses and reinvest the surplus obtained during the initial cycles of production, as well as the different types of relationships that make some key resources available to them. At the meso level, research has put forward the role of some local institutions (municipalities and agrarian high schools) in supporting initiatives through different means, as well as the competences depicted by agents who transcend traditional role prescriptions. However at the macro level the hegemonic production model currently in place in the Pampas region, as well as the weakness of differentiated policies oriented to family production pose limits on the viability of these initiatives in the medium term.