Agriculture, Environment and Development

The different chapters of this book discuss key aspects of agricultural modernization and raise some important questions about politico-economic and socio-ecological transformations taking place in countries of both the Global North (Europe in particular) and the Global South (with specific examples from Brazil and India). Our starting point is that, because of complex socio-economic interactions, environmental pressures, and fierce disputes, agriculture and rural development are today among the most controversial areas of policymaking, planning, and lobbying. With the encroachment of contemporary capitalism upon food production and biological systems, agriculture has become increasingly associated with, and subordinate to, a globalized agroindustrial complex that exerts decisive influence over technology, financing, logistics, and commercialization. In general terms, a—partial and problematic—transition from agriculture to agribusiness has taken place over the last century, with the last two decades or so seeing a further transition to neoliberalized agribusiness. Consequently, the concept of agribusiness, which was originally introduced in the 1950s at the time of Fordist agriculture in the USA, has had to mutate in order to encapsulate agricultural production based on business-friendly state interventions, policy liberalization, and the dominance of transnational corporations.

It is not difficult to appreciate why ideas of ‘integrated’ and ‘joined-up’ planning have become key motifs of emerging approaches to the sustainable management of water and agricultural systems. Decision-makers with responsibility for this rapidly developing arena of cross-sectoral policy quite reasonably seek a future in which system interdependencies will be recognised, priorities for management assigned, and responsibilities for action borne fairly. In England, for instance, the government department with responsibility for sustainable rural development recently published its strategy for water (DEFRA 2008), setting out a vision that positions agricultural systems as central to the process of resolving competing issues of water supply and demand, and water quality and quantity by the year 2030. While priorities for action vary greatly according to political and material circumstances, parallel calls can be found elsewhere (Blanco 2008; Conca 2006; Faby et al. 2005; Lemos and Oliveira 2005; Swatuk 2005). Driven in part by the exigencies of an increasingly congested terrain of international agreements (such as the Convention on Biological Diversity) and laws (such as the pan-European Water Framework Directive), what holds this diversity together is the recognition that fragmented policymaking and implementation across the agricultural and water sectors continues to be a systematic and deeply institutionalised feature of natural resource management and, consequently, a major obstacle to the realisation of sustainable livelihoods and development.

In the collective imagination, Mediterranean agri-food systems are based on small farms that expand through high nature value (HNV) landscapes, where farmers use traditional and culturally specific practices to produce foodstuffs that are recognized globally as part of the famous Mediterranean diet. However, the actual dynamics of the Mediterranean agri-food system reveal a much more complex and diverse reality, with distinct socionatural configurations—from highly intensive vegetable production to extensive cereal farms—which do not fit the stereotype and are seldom analysed in an integrated fashion (see Ortiz-Miranda et al. 2013). Not only are these historical socio-ecological systems being bypassed, but Mediterranean dynamics have struggled to fit into European agrarian change and rural development paradigms developed in the Anglo-Saxon tradition (which are the main influence behind European Union policies). This difficulty has prompted an image of ‘delay’ in Mediterranean countries, either in adopting productivist pathways (e.g. increasing the size of agricultural holdings) or in developing an internal market for organic products or urban food policies.

This chapter discusses the prevailing paradigm governing agricultural land and water management in the rainfed drylands of India. It aims to nuance an existing narrative that tightly intertwines agrarian distress in these landscapes with primarily climatic factors—specifically low or diminishing rainfall. In doing so, it contributes to opening up what has become a rather narrow conversation that informs a limited set of technical strategies. The central thesis of the chapter is that climate-driven distress is less of a threat (though by no means an insubstantial one) than overuse or unequal allocation of limited water resources. By extension, sustainable land and water management require much more than the provision of more irrigation.

This chapter is the result of a collective effort by a group of geographers in which we propose a territorialized reading of certain complex questions related to water, land, socioterritorial movements, capital, and labour in contemporary Brazil. Our starting point is that an understanding of territorial issues is fundamental as part of an integrated approach to sectoral issues, and that we need to understand territory as being something more than just the ground surface of an area of land. Territory is more than surface; people are also territories. We make reference to actions that produce social relations and, in that sense, create territories. People create territories as much as territories create people. Territories and people are therefore inseparable. We emphasize the complexity of socioterritorial relations, and argue that a territorialized understanding is essential when analysing disputes over natural resources and the processes that produce new territories. Territorial disputes are key when considering power relations through a typology of territories, meaning that a multidimensional analysis is required; in a one-dimensional examination of a territory as simply an area of land, these realities are likely to be overlooked.

Over the last 20 years, production of fresh fruits, both in crude and processed form, has increased significantly around the world (Fig. 6.1). Rising incomes and growing consumer interest in product variety, freshness, convenience, and year-round availability are among the main reasons for this increased demand (Diop and Jaffee 2005). Fruits and vegetables are rich sources of micronutrients, needed by children for optimal growth and development. Most national and international dietary guidelines are in agreement that consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables is a healthy food choice and yet needs to be increased. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a minimum daily intake of 400 grams of fruits and vegetables, especially for children, and many countries have programmes to promote consumption (FAO/WHO 2004).

The international market for food and non-food agricultural products is growing rapidly, as is the concentration of production that takes place at sectoral level due to merger and acquisition processes and the consolidation of spatial monopolies due to regional productive specialization, company consolidation, and intense competition patterns. These processes have a particularly great impact on the primary sectors of the economy, contributing to what is called the commoditization of agriculture, and in this respect, Brazil stands as a unique example. Big corporations aim to achieve the highest possible productivity in order to maximize profits. To this end, water, one of the most basic resources in agricultural production, is exploited to the extreme. An example of this is the use of deepwater aquifers as a major source of water for irrigation. These sources of water, which should be prioritized as strategic reserves, have often shown signs of depletion and scarcity in various key intensive farming areas of Brazil. The dynamics of water exploitation in such cases is what links the two processes examined in this text. First, the authors examine the effective use of resources in irrigated production from free or confined aquifers. Second, the study examines production standards arising from the concept of virtual water export and the use of green, blue, and grey water types. Demand for all these types of water is established in production processes, but there is also an effective extraction of the physical water reserves for incorporation into agricultural products, which we call consumptive use, and, consequently, for the material export of water. These two processes—namely consumptive and non-consumptive uses of water—play an important role in the hydrological cycle and need to be reflected in a new water balance model.

The Amazon region poses a great challenge for the water resources management regime in Brazil. Its large area, widely dispersed population, and the small number of economic activities based in the region’s river basins have hampered the implementation of decentralized and participatory institutional structures as defined in Brazil’s Water Law 9433, approved in 1997. The lack of spaces for negotiation, combined with rising demand for water and energy, has led to serious conflict, as was recently the case with the Belo Monte Dam, under construction along the lower Xingu River. The growing demand for water and energy has led to conflict and distress, while state authorities and the agriculture sector have focused their attention on land tenure and deforestation, leaving water management and access as a secondary issue. However, while water is not explicitly on the agenda, it is water availability that allows intensive food production in the region to expand. So, how are formal water institutions reaching the local and municipal scale? Who are the groups involved? How are their strategies influencing water access and environmental conservation in the region?

As discussed in detail in the other chapters in this book, although agricultural production has increased considerably in absolute terms since the post–World War II years, various problems continue to affect the agriculture industry’s image worldwide. These problems include a lack of access to affordable, nutritious food in many countries; the impacts of agrochemicals on communities and ecosystems; and the enormous concentration of power held by a small number of mega-supermarkets and agri-food corporations to control food production, distribution, and consumption. There is a growing understanding today that the increasing industrialization of agriculture represents an important chapter, perhaps the most important, in the renovation of the global capitalist economy (Busch and Bain 2004) and, in particular, the transition to post-Fordist modes of production under the sphere of influence of globalization and neoliberalism (McMichael 2009). If neoliberalism—as a complex, inherently variegated ideology of critical importance across scales and regions (MacArtney 2009)—comprises beliefs and practices centred on the idea that market efficiency is the best mechanism for regulating socio-economic relations and renovating politico-economic strategies (Schmalz and Ebenau 2012), agro-neoliberalism is a highly idiosyncratic phenomenon that combines free-market pressures and flexibilization approaches with renewed forms of protectionism, trade barriers, and labour movement restrictions (Potter and Tilzey 2005). Agro-neoliberalism is essentially a politicized ideology that ultimately deepens the contradictions of capitalism across time and space (Araghi 2003), such as the disturbing contrast between southern areas of production (and environmental degradation) and northern spaces of consumption (and capital accumulation).