GUIDING THEMES
The following four themes will guide the conference:
- CRISIS AND RESILIENCE OF RURAL AREAS: TERRITORIES, ACTORS AND PROCESSES
The impacts of the crisis in rural areas have been very diverse, depending on their variety and typologies. They have shown an adaptive capacity that demonstrates the economic and social complexity of these territories: aging and unequal depopulation, productive restructuration, new types of marginalization and social exclusion, growing presence of new collectives together with the extinction of others (immigrants, the urban unemployed, professionals and young farmers who return or cannot leave these areas), implementation of new governance typologies, etc. It is necessary to reflect upon the transformations and new realities that the context of the crisis has generated in the rural world, in a way that allows us, on the one hand, to explain and understand what happened in the last ten years and, on the other, to reinterpret and revalue these areas.
Keywords/guiding themes: territorial resilience; territory stakeholders; remainers and migrants: changes in the population structures; rural aging; fluctuant inhabitants in rural areas; the urban in the rural and the rural in the urban; peri-urban spaces and peri-rural spaces; forgotten areas; the deep rural; new information and communication technologies in rural areas; internet and social networks in rural territories; accessibility of rural territories; new energies and renewable energies in rural areas; custody of the territory; new interpretations of the rural and identity feelings; processes of participation, governance and social involvement; decadency and new emergency of basic services; economic tertiarization; interculturality; rural jobs and rural activities; networking; social movements in rural areas; conflicts among different collectives; poverty and social exclusion; gender studies and rural society; new concepts, theories, methods and techniques in the study of rural realities.
- MODERNIZATION, COMPETITIVENESS AND AGRO-FOOD CHAIN. NEW WAYS FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION
In a setting of economic post-crisis like the current period, the integration of the productive sector (agricultural, livestock and fishing), the transformation of its production with the consequent increase in its value within the agrifood chain (agroindustry) and the production chain, artisanal and locally-sourced food is essential, creating links of coordination and collaboration, value chains, new forms of organization and R+D+i. The satisfaction of a market that increasingly demands quality and food security is vital to guarantee the welfare of the population as well as agricultural and rural development, based on a commitment to the fight against climate change. All this without forgetting the essential function that the agrarian activities have: that of supplying food for the population. In the face of technological and homogenizing responses, there is an increasing demand and need to recover proposals linked to the territories, to historical-cultural practices of relating man to the land.
Keywords/guiding themes: agrarian modernization; agrifood chain; competitiveness; food safety, traceability; clusters; agroindustrial systems; proximity markets; local products; alternative circuits of agri-food production; territorial certification processes (geographical indications, etc.); quality and innovation; fair trade; cooperativism; local agri-food systems; ecological agricultura; new agricultures; urban and peri-urban orchards; food quality; short distribution circuits; value and marketing chains; multifunctionality; agrarian sustainability; the management of wáter resources; permaculture: woman and agriculture; peasant cultures; traditional productions and varieties; food sovereignty.
- NEOENDOGENOUS RURAL DEVELOPMENT. ANSWERS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT POLICIES TO THE CRISIS
The initiatives and experiences of territorial and local development with a bottom-up and neo-endogenous approach have their origin in the practice within the European Union with the document “The future of the rural world” (1988) and the LEADER Initiative, this last as its most emblematic programme. After 25 years of application in the interests of development and rural diversification with an innovative character, it is necessary to assess their limitations, successes and mistakes in different territories. This approach has been developed in very different socioeconomic contexts, areas and periods. All this without forgetting the continuous budgetary restrictions to which the Common Agrarian Policy (CAP) has been submitted in parallel to the growth of the members that make up the EU. This approach continues its application in rural areas.
Keywords/guiding themes: rural development; local development; neoendogenous rural development; analysis and evaluation of the LEADER approach; regional strategic plans; social innovation, cooperation and networks; innovation and rural development; successful/failed experiencies, initiatives and projects; participation and governance; actors involved and excluded; women and rural development; territorial capital; social capital; potentialities of the territory; cultural heritage; natural heritage.
- THE ROLE OF PUBLIC POLICIES IN THE CONTEXT OF CRISIS IN THE RURAL WORLD. THE PAC POST 2020
The future of the European rural areas –its agrarian future, in particular– is linked in an important way to the CAP, in the absence, in the case of our country, of a national policy on the matter. As is well known, the lack of funds for the implementation of Law 45/2007 and the Sustainable Rural Development Programme that develops it, has been left only on paper. The new reform of the CAP 2014-2020, born in a restrictive socioeconomic context and economic recession, generates great uncertainty. Its enormous complexity affects prices and markets. In this reform, issues related to agriculture are no longer treated with a sectoral perspective to be valued in a global way: contribution to the provision of public goods and adaptation to challenges of a general nature (climatic change, environment, social and economic cohesion, multifunctionality, among others). This new formulation has been much discussed and questioned for various reasons and, as is usual, after the signing of the political agreement of the current reform, the following post2020 began to be discussed.
The debates are focused on three main aspects: the internal and external convergence of “direct subsidies”, “greening”, and the need to address issues such as unfair commercial practices or risk management, in order to achieve a balance in the food chains. In this context, evaluating the working of the current PAC after several years of its implementation is a necessary exercise as is a reflection on future orientations; the Cork declaration 2.0 already points in that direction. We furthermore cannot forget that in rural territories other actions carried out from the side of public policy play an essential role both in these spaces and in agricultural activities. This is the case of those directly linked to regional policy, infrastructure of all kinds, as well as social grants and benefits that, as in the case of Andalusia and Extremadura, are very relevant for the inhabitants of these areas. What seems to be an eternal debate in the unfinished Fourth Ministerial Conference of the WTO, started in Doha (Qatar) in November 2001, and that once again has agrarian issues as the main obstacle to be overcome, will end up interfering with the future and global dynamics of the rural spaces and their substantive activity, the agrarian.
Keywords/guiding themes: Common Agricultural Policy; PAC post 2020; Doha; World Trade Organization; territorial and landscape impacts of the CAP; agro-territorial approach associated with the Agrarian and Rural Development European Fund; territorial cohesion; planning and management of rural spaces; employment policies and social policies; forestry and livestock policies; infrastructure and equipment policies; agricultural activities in protected natural areas; mountain areas and productive development; agricultural unemployment subsidies; present and future pensions in aged spaces; ownership of land and wealth in times of crisis.