‘Post-productivist’ agricultural regimes and the South: discordant concepts?

By Geoff A. Wiilson, J. Rigg. 2003

174 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this paper we review current assumptions about post-productivist agricultural regimes - developed largely within a UK/advanced economies framework - and attempt to answer the question whether the concept of post-productivism can be used to understand contemporary agricultural change in developing world regions. Our analysis is loosely based around six interconnected ‘indicators’ of post-productivism: policy change; organic farming; counter-urbanization; the inclusion of environmental NGOs at the core of policy-making; the consumption of the countryside; and on-farm diversification activities. We argue that the successful ‘exporting’ of the theory of post-productivism to the South relies on shared definitions, meanings and - ultimately - discourses of post-productivism. Although similar patterns can be observed in rural areas of the developing world, there is confusion about the exact meaning of complex agricultural/rural activities. Further, our analysis questions the implied linearity of the traditional concept of the productivist/post-productivist transition. Ultimately, a relative assessment of the shift towards post-productivism would circumvent discursive problems related to definitions and meanings of specific post-productivist concepts and indicators. We conclude by arguing that the notion of post-productivism and the developing world are not necessarily ‘discordant concepts', but we suggest that the concept needs to be adapted and developed to address specific conditions in the rural South, possibly by combining theoretical approaches surrounding the notion of ‘post-productivism’ developed largely from a Northern perspective, and ‘deagrarianization’ from a Southern perspective.

Subfields: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cb9012035493efa2842a0b481c12e4164bc6dbfe

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In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Unfolding Webs: The Dynamics of Regional Rural Development (2008, background): “New forms of agricultural markets have also emerged in recent years and this is related to the shift from a productivist to a post-productivist food regime (Shucksmith 1993; Wilson and Rigg 2003).”
Towards a Better Conceptual Framework for Innovation Processes in Agriculture and Rural Development: From Linear Models to Systemic Approaches (2009, background): “The much broader focus of RD with an integrated and multi-sectoral view characterising the concept of the ‘living countryside’ is accompanied by a transition of contemporary agricultural regimes from a ‘productivist’ to a ‘post-productivist’ era (Wilson and Rigg, 2003; Van der Ploeg et al., 2000; Kn”
The puzzle of East and Southeast Asia's persistent smallholder (2016, background): “All such support mechanisms can do, arguably, is either postpone the inevitable or to lay the groundwork for the emergence of a post-productivist farm landscape (see Wilson and Rigg, 2003; Mather et al., 2006; Rigg and Ritchie, 2002).”