A paradigmatic process of asymmetric globalization is underway, that is, the global runs much faster than the local, deterritorialization much faster than reterritorialization, delocalization much faster than relocation. The state of the art in this matter is very complex. However, a new post-agricultural or post-conventional rural culture is arriving in very different ways:
– new socio-cultural values trigger new demands and market niches,
– the frequency, intensity, severity and visibility of environmental problems give rise to new social movements and a new environmental awareness that force the authorities to act,
– recreational and leisure activities promote the rediscovery of territories and their potential, even the most distant,
– biotechnological and agroecological research opens up a new range of possibilities for the most disadvantaged rural areas,
– regulatory and regulatory mechanisms also end up, in their own way, by segmenting markets and opening up new possibilities,
– the arrival of new actors through a growing residential economy is an opportunity to attract new agro-rural entrepreneurs,
– climate change and the new carbon, biodiversity and water markets are a source of opportunities for primary territories and the most disadvantaged rural areas.
The great principles of this new post-agricultural rurality are also known to us:
– it is necessary to think global and act local, to be glocal.
– it is necessary to increase diversity to reduce inequality,
– it is necessary to lower the intensity to improve the quality,
– it is necessary to produce more and better with fewer resources,
– it is necessary to reduce, recycle and reuse raw materials and natural resources,
- it is necessary to regulate the flow so as not to deplete the stock of resources,
– it is necessary to network initiatives to increase the capillarity of the territory,
– it is necessary to value the identity without falling into the identity fashion,
– it is necessary to value the positive externalities and sanction the negative ones.
In this general context, a new generation of products and services will emerge that we call here glocal products. Now let's see some characteristics of glocal products that are friendly to the rural world and the local economy.
1. Proximity products or the importance of building a local economy
Glocal products are proximity products. Proximity is a value that needs to be rediscovered in terms of the local economy or, more strictly, in the formation of a local productive system.
This is not about carrying out local economic autarky, but rather about not giving up prematurely just because the local territory does not have the resources that allow it to produce in the price conditions of the world market.
Unfortunately, economic research relegated to a secondary level, or even abandoned, the study of the microgeoeconomics of local productive systems.
We know that the formation of a local economy increases the identification of citizens with their territory and this territorial motivation helps to create productive, social and symbolic capital, whose fragility, however, is not always understood by the institutional, legal and fiscal framework in force.
That is, absolutely disproportionate contextual costs are created that end up pushing micro-initiatives into the underground economy.
Proximity products leave capital gains in the local economy that are, in principle, reinvested in strengthening that same economy. Glocal products certify local production systems and the places where they occur.
2. Clean and fair products or the importance of food safety and fair trade
Glocal products are clean and fair products. Clean, not only because they should have low agrochemical intensity, but clean, too, because they should be fair products and be part of fair trade.
In the first case, we are favoring and preferring products in agroecological modes of production in their various modalities.
In the second case, we are favoring and preferring products that do not practice discrimination, whether due to unfair competition practices and abusive and obscure methods of social, environmental and fiscal dumping, or even misappropriation of capital gains formed in long and speculative circuits.
We know that the dominant economic culture has always been governed by the basic principle of privatizing the benefit and socializing the loss.
The theory is simple: to condition and influence the silent majority of taxpayers and consumers, betting on their low organizational capacity and trying to convince them that the socialization of social and environmental problems has a “low cost” impact on the tax structure.
In this conditioning strategy, what is essential is omitted, namely that there are other options in terms of the organization of the economic system, cleaner and fairer and of lesser fiscal intensity.
It must therefore be clearly stated that there is a direct relationship between dirty and unfair products and the tax burden, that is, that the environmental and public health consequences have a heavy translation in terms of the tax burden.
Therefore, we will have to decide whether we want a curative economy with a high tax burden, because it socializes the losses and privatizes the benefits, or a preventive economy with a low tax burden, based on clean and fair products, given that this option is not indifferent to the point of view of winners and losers in terms of internal political sociology.
Glocal products certify and ensure low tax intensity because they reduce and counteract the socialization of losses.
3. Indigenous products or the importance of conservation and biodiversity
The glocal products are, in the first instance, autochthonous products or products that integrate endogenous resources with high added value and that, for this reason, are socially and commercially known and valued.
In this sense, and to form the local production system, it is essential that economic and ecological research say how and with what intensity the genetic and biological resources should be used for production. Biodiversity is, in a way, the ultimate resource of a territory, however, conservation and biodiversity do not take place in ecological or natural sanctuaries.
On the contrary, it is the local production system, through the creation of agroecosystems, for example, that best protects these resources, especially as conservation and biodiversity are attributes that increasingly create commercial value for products that respect and preserve these values.
Recovering lost seeds, traditional technologies and ancestral knowledge is to create identity and territorial motivation for new initiatives.
In this way, in small steps, the local productive system is built, in this way the property rights of a region are respected and, in this way, it is also possible to reinvest the gains generated by these resources.
The glocal products certify the importance of conservation and biodiversity activities as essential activities for production and agro-ecosystems.
4. Low energy intensity products or the importance of local energy savings
Glocal products are low energy-intensity products. Energy based on fossil fuels is a very centralized form of energy, produced in a near monopoly and increasingly expensive.
Again, eco-energy research must provide pertinent information about the various combined and decentralized microgeneration systems, their economic viability and their connection to local endogenous renewable resources.
In the same sense, we must ask ourselves what is the role of agro-forestry resources in the design of the local energy economy in particular and in the local production system in general, in order to promote complementarity and integration of uses and avoid land use conflicts and resources.
The glocal products are products certified for adopting low energy intensity transformation processes.
5. Low water intensity products or the importance of saving water
Glocal products are low water intensity products. Water is a scarce resource with a growing exploitation cost, which is why it is essential to reduce the relative weight of this factor in the cost structure of the agroforestry and food company.
The goals to be achieved are savings, efficiency, recycling and rainwater collection.
Glocal products require short water distribution circuits and are products certified for adopting low water intensity transformation processes.
6. Products with a low mobilization rate or the importance of good agricultural soil regeneration
Glocal products are products with a low agricultural soil mobilization index. It is not just a question of reducing mechanization rates and costs, but also of converting conventional agriculture to agroecological methods of minimal tillage and direct seeding, with a view to reducing soil exposure to aggressive erosion factors of different natures.
This is a logical corollary of the principle of sustainability of natural soil resources, life support through which the materials and nutrients necessary for the growth of agroecosystems circulate.
Glocal products are products certified for adopting low intensity soil mobilization production processes.
7. Closed-loop products or the importance of good internality management
The glocal products are closed-loop products, that is, their residues are considered “internalities” of the transformation process and incorporated into the current production system.
This production system has a strategic dimension of the utmost importance, since the “closed cycle” forces us to reconsider the technological options made, in the sense of a greater proximity to the functioning of the natural systems of the ecosystem in which it is located.
Despite the apparent paradox, the “closed loop” also includes the production of positive externalities on the local economy and the quality of life of the respective communities.
The glocal products are products certified for adopting closed-loop transformation processes without residues.
8. Landscape-friendly products or the importance of good landscape mosaic management
Glocal products are products that perform global landscape management, that is, they are global landscapes. The greater the variety of elements that make up the landscape, the greater the number of features and connections in the landscape mosaic and the greater the degree of self-sufficiency of the respective agroecosystems.
The landscape is an internality of the production process, but it must be returned to the origin, in the form of a positive externality, that is, as a value-added landscape.
The glocal products are landscaped certified products for adopting transformation processes that attest to good landscape mosaic management practices.
9. Network-intensive products or the importance of social capital formation
The glocal products are products with high network intensity, that is, they generate social capital.
That is, glocal products are not independent or indifferent to the social relations they imply. We are talking about the creation of associative structures, institutional relations, active measures to create employment, community relations and the formation of local markets, the mobilization of young people for agro-rural entrepreneurship, in short, the creation of new attractiveness factors for the rural territories.
The glocal products are products certified for adopting social processes with high network intensity and contributing to renew the social capital of the territories where they occur.
10. Products with identity or the importance of symbolic capital formation
The glocal products are products with identity, that is, they carry fundamental attributes of the territory and generate identification and motivation, as they are or should be a genuine image of that territory.
We can see or read the local history through the glocal products, they carry past, present and future, from endangered seeds and species, traditional knowledge and technologies, to the brand images and “marketing” of the future.
In this way, glocal products are vehicles of symbolic communication with the outside of the region, they promote their products, they are the unique ambassadors of a territory.
Glocal products are culturally certified products as they incorporate symbolically relevant elements and contribute decisively to the external affirmation of a region.
Conclusion
Glocal products are the biophysical and agro-ecological dimension of a country's strategic reserves, in particular the most emblematic products of its protected landscape areas and disadvantaged rural areas.
They are the quintessential representation of the new rural world in the making, more open and cosmopolitan, but also more nostalgic and traditionalist.
Everything suggests that they will be paradoxical products, a mixture of past, present and future, within the limits of the technology of the agroecological and food imagination.
Between agriculture and agroculture, this is where we are. The country's tourist vocation and the touristification of the Portuguese rural world eagerly await this small agrocultural revolution. With account, weight and measure.
Author António Covas is a full professor at the University of Algarve and a PhD in European Affairs from the Free University of Brussels
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