'Does small-scale farming resist within urbanization increasing pressure?': enhancing alternative food alliances in the metropolitan countryside of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Keywords: small-scale farming; alternative food networks; rural multifunctionality; rural-urban interface; Rio de Janeiro/Brazil
Session Type: Virtual Poster
Day: Wednesday
Session Start / End Time: 4/7/2021 03:05 PM (Pacific Time (US & Canada)) - 4/7/2021 04:20 PM (Pacific Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 51

Abstract

Urban centres and their surrounding rural hinterlands have been given prominence in recent rural studies. Emancipatory food networks have emerged in rural-urban space where alliances are forged between urban consumers and local farmers who offered quality-food products through alternative distribution networks and so have acted as an environmental and social counterforce to urbanization and intensive global food systems (Marsden and Smith, 2005; Goodman et al., 2011; Marsden and Morely, 2014). The research, based on small-scale farming resilience at the rural-urban interface, has been conducting in the regional context of the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro for over five years. Nevertheless, this study draws on a more recent investigation that approaches the challenges to regional farming systems and alternative food alliances in the globalized and urbanized context of Rio de Janeiro. The key point is the importance of promoting resilience by establishing political priorities to support small-scale farming systems based around fundamentally different logics to intensive global food systems, and which, over time, generate more sustainable and equitable power relation systems for the purpose of regional and local quality agricultural systems, small-scale farming strategies, and resilient rural futures.

References

Goodman, D., Dupuis, E.M., Goodman, M.K., 2011. Alternative Food Networks. Routledge, London.

Marsden, T., Morely, A., 2014. Current food questions and their scholarly challenges. In: Marsden, T.,Morely, A. Sustainable Food Systems: Building a New Paradigm. Earthscan, Milton Park, 1-29.

Marsden, T., Smith, E., 2005. Ecological entrepreneurship: sustainable development in local communities through quality food production and local branding. Geoforum 36, 53-62.