O "terroir" it is a complex and structured concept, often associated with French wine from some well-known regions.
O "terroir", as such, participates in the final personality of the wine product, as if it were a signature of each producing region. The fundamental elements are the soil, climate, altitude, rainfall, relief, the varieties used and human action in the form of family and collective relationships, common culture and traditions.
This is, however, the traditional meaning of "terroir", a meaning, let's say, monochromatic. Nowadays, information and communication technologies (ICT) and the wave of intelligence and creativity led by companies in the digital economy will also reach our deepest and most remote interiors. Moreover, a silent revolution is underway, made up of diversity and plurality of actors, agriculture and business models.
All of this seems like a paradoxical discourse, at the very moment when we are mourning the tragedy of fires. Now, it is absolutely necessary to counter this pessimistic discourse and affirm the vitality of Portuguese agriculture, in particular the essential polychromy of our countless microclimates and agro-ecological environments, whether in vineyards, olive groves, orchards.
I. Innermost, a universe with many terroirs and market niches
In a country just over 200 kilometers wide, the “inland difference” must be seen and sought after as a comparative advantage, an immense hinterland with close links to one or more metropolitan areas.
Good communication routes and fast digital connections will soon end the former paralyzing city-country dichotomies.
It is necessary, however, to “map the advantages of the interior” and raise new actors, protagonists and project ideas for them. The current ones do not seem to be up to this great challenge.
If all goes well, the so-called “Interior” will become, in a few years, our most precious “pearl necklace”.
II. Territorial Distinctive Signs (SDT)
We are in 2017, the terroirs "are not required" to be just a subscription to a single product (the "terroir" monochrome).
The material and symbolic universe of a region contains many “territorial distinctive signs”, many of them hidden or ignored.
It is the perception of a certain regional iconography that will revolutionize the concept of "terroir" as it is usually understood (as a kind of sanctuary).
We therefore need to invest more in the delimitation and identification of these distinctive signs and to conceive, based on them, another reading grid of the territory that feeds the diversity and plurality of the "terroir" polychromatic.
III. The iconography of "terroir" polychromatic
It will not be difficult, then, to build a new narrative – an iconography – from the icons and symbolic references present in the rural world, as they are abundant.
Here are just a few examples taken from this referential universe and which, as a whole, make up the inspiring environment of the "terroir": the silence of the distant horizon, the spirituality and the genius of the places, the overflowing inspiration of nature, the religious sense of recollection, the beauty of a pictorial painting, the enchantment of a literary landscape, the mysteries of natural life, nostalgia for the simple life.
The smart and creative territories of the future will have enough raw material here to work and produce new creative and cultural content.
IV. The scenography of a desired territory
The distinctive territorial signs and its special iconography open the door to different scenographies of the territory.
As start-up of the digital economy, especially the companies of the marketing digital and advertising, will seize the opportunity and take the rural world as a to for your next forays and performances.
The romantic naturalism of our deep countryside will be a precious asset and asset. It won't just be precision farming with its agribots, it will also be an “agriculture” that will arrive with neo-romantic neo-rurals.
The rural world and the countryside will become a kind of natural setting for the productions low cost of the most varied cyberculture.
V. Choreography and collaborative sociability
with a new to and new actors and protagonists will surely have another choreography as well. Alongside the pure and hard capitalism that will remain, we will increasingly have a collaborative economy that will make capitalism more popular and genuine, in the proper sense of the terms.
Network territories and network actors will be formed, where social capital will be as or more decisive than financial capital. The political and social choreography will be more complex and very different from the current one, as the peer-to-peer economy, “peer to peer, P2P”, with more collective intelligence and social solidarity will gradually take the place of the most extractive and predatory economy.
SAW. Collective intelligence, P2P, a collaborative platform for the "terroir"
This will be the main task of the near future, the creation of a collective territorial intelligence capable of framing the deep rural.
I have no doubts, there will be more countryside in the city and more city in the countryside. From vertical agriculture in the city, to community-accompanied agriculture, to new peri-urban agriculture, to precision agriculture and niche agriculture, it will be increasingly a continuum ecological over 200 km.
In these green corridors, the terroirs they will be the “cherry on the cake” and a real attraction for neo-rurals who will arrive curious to occupy the interior of the country, which will eventually become, who would say, a truly cosmopolitan interior.
A collaborative platform is a management support computer application and a first fundamental tool to assemble this collective territorial intelligence. But that's just the first step.
VII. The ambassadors of "terroir" polychromatic
Os terroirs, by their very nature, are a long and delicate construction, a true sociocultural filigree, whose permanence depends a lot on the reputational capital that it is possible to gather around them.
In order to maintain this reputation, the value transmitted to it by the brand image of the original product is no longer enough, often captured by hasty touristification of the territory.
To maintain common sense and good taste around the "terroir" and reinventing the symbolic universe of its distinctive signs, the region “will be obliged” to choose its most representative and reputable ambassadors, its most distinguished faces.
VIII. The governance model of the "terroir" polychromatic
O "terroir" it generally has a tacit governance woven over the years. However, for this new, more cosmopolitan phase, it will need to constitute a polychromatic network territory (TR) animated by a pivot what we call the actor-network.
The network actor is, say, the master of ceremonies of the terroir, but that it works according to the logic of curating the territory. Among its tasks are: the choice of SDTs, their iconographic narrative and scenarios for their representation (which best pollinate the territory), the mapping of ecological niches and their habitats, the gravitational map of local and regional actors and the degree of connectivity of the terroir as a function of its operational strategy.
Final Note: from production-spaces to produced-spaces
The most remote and hostile territories will be a challenge to the technological and digital imagination and we are always waiting for universities, research centers and start-up bolder are able to bring us new ways to occupy these territories.
Progressively, the terroirs of our rural world will no longer be production-spaces to become, more and more, produced-spaces, if we like, territories of destination and visitation. O marketing digital will forge a brand image full of glamorous (e pastiche), the new ambassadors will give good publicity to the place branding, the arrival of many talented neo-rurals will revolutionize the traditional terroirs of production.
However, the new digital economy, to prove its life, communities are not enough online created spontaneously in spaces of coworking ou fablab municipal or cooperative. The start-up generated in incubators and accelerators, which vegetate there without a minimum of sustainability. There is, in fact, a long way to go from the comfort of a community-managed digital network online and the discomfort of a real problem managed by a real community, municipal or associative.
Os terroirs from Alentejo Vinhateiro, from Dão and Bairrada, from Alto Douro Vinhateiro, from Minho Verde, among others, are an excellent starting point for future terroirs colors of our rural world.
The so-called wine routes are, in this context, just an embryo of what remains to be done. We want to believe that neo-rurals of all extractions and origins are already preparing this great journey that will lead us, gradually, from the terroirs from simple production to terroirs of production and destination, say, to terroirs more polychromatic.
The forest fires of last summer did not, fortunately, affect our main terroirs, but left a serious warning to the integrated management of rural territories in the interior. All the more reason to be warned and not let your guard down.
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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