I return to a topic that is very dear to me, namely, the virtuous triangulation and positive links between local production systems (SPL), tourist visitation and the creative economy.
In terms of local production systems, and in parallel with precision agriculture, so-called post-productivist agriculture will emerge, some more social and community-based, others more specialized, but all, in principle, agriculture with greater proximity and circularity.
Climate change, agroecology, niche economies and healthy eating, but also eco-schemes and payments for the provision of environmental services, will act as a pretext and proximate cause and will arouse growing curiosity on the part of the next generations of young entrepreneurs rural.
In terms of agroecological transition, I adopt the words of Architect Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles regarding the organicism of the global landscape when he says: tree plantations are not forests, forestry engineering is not forestry, transgenic crops are not agriculture, cloned animals are not livestock farming, operations land tenure is not biophysical engineering, green landscaping is not landscape architecture, greening of crops is not the provision of environmental services; Instead, the global landscape is a very complex and interdependent mosaic that includes nature conservation, fresh food production, agritourism amenities and the management of protected landscape areas, according to technical criteria, but also aesthetic and ethical.
In this alignment of the agroecological transition, SPLs can accommodate several applications of a multifunctional nature:
– Protected designations of origin (PDO): within the framework of a natural park or a mountain subsystem, for example, we can (the local partnership) modernize the local production system, creating, for this purpose, a specific agroecology, a designation of protected origin (PDO) and a new visitation strategy through bolder and more imaginative territorial marketing;
– Niche markets or segments: within the framework of a spa center, a tourist village or a river amenity we can (the local partnership) recreate a market niche, for example, a new quality public space for accessible tourism, therapeutic and recreational based on a small cluster of therapeutic, creative and cultural activities created for this purpose;
– Agrotourism complexes with holiday and adventure camps: within the framework of a company, cooperative or local development association we can (the local partnership) launch a creative and integrated agritourism and rural tourism strategy that includes the participation of visitors in agro-rural practices traditional activities and the collaboration of volunteers from summer, work and adventure camps;
– Village and nature tourism networks: a group of villages with a specialized vocation in a specific sector or product, the wine-producing villages of the Alto Douro, for example, a world heritage site, are associated with tourist enterprises, associations or producer clubs, a higher education school and the most representative cultural associations, with a view to designing a joint strategy for visiting and enhancing the tangible and intangible heritage of this sub-region;
– Collective brands for the relaunch of a range of products: a group of companies, agricultural cooperatives and development associations come together with the aim of designing and implementing a joint agrarian and commercial modernization strategy for a sub-region that was the subject of significant public investments that urgently need to be relaunched (for example, new irrigation);
– Agroforestry systems or mosaics (SAF): within the framework of one or more Forest Intervention Zones (ZIF), associations of forest producers, hunting reserves, protected landscape areas, local human communities come together to form an agroforestry system -silvo-pastoral with a view to creating an integrated intervention strategy that ranges from the prevention and recovery of burned areas to the construction of agro-silvo-pastoral systems with their complete basket of forest products;
– A center for functional ecology and landscape architecture: a research center in the area of biodiversity, functional ecology and ecosystem rehabilitation, a park or natural reserve, an agroforestry association, tourism companies in rural areas, companies in the area of thermal spas, propose to create a research-action-extension program with a view to preserving biodiversity and local endemisms, improving the supply of environmental services and the commercial valorization of these assets through the launch of tourist, cultural and scientific services;
– Programs aimed at mountain and mountain villages: a group of municipalities together with local development associations, natural parks and respective business operators create a local partnership to design and launch a community development program for mountain and mountain villages and a corresponding basket of products;
– Biological and environmental parks: a group of municipalities, a thermal group, a protected landscape area, an environmental or local development association propose to create a type of sanctuary, amenity or exemplary ecosystem that is a place for visitation and observation , but also a laboratory of good agroecological practices, biophysical engineering, landscape ecology and habitat rehabilitation;
– Intermunicipal Agricultural Parks with social inclusion objectives: in the field of social action, an intermunicipal, associative or community project, brings together Trade Unions, Private Institutions of Social Solidarity (IPSS), the Institute of Employment and Professional Training (IEFP), a higher agrarian school; The objective of this local partnership is a social inclusion program in a broad sense, which includes professional training and the execution of institutional food contracts to supply schools, prisons, hospitals, barracks, homes, etc.;
– The Pedagogical, Recreational and Therapeutic Farms: in the field of pedagogical, recreational and therapeutic action, an intermunicipal, associative and community project, aimed at the most vulnerable groups of the population with special needs, which brings together the IPSS, hospital services, the university, professional orders and research centers, with a view to providing medical, pedagogical, recreational and therapeutic services, but also environmental services, which are essential for the well-being and quality of life of the most sensitive groups of the population;
– Condominiums for the management of common assets: in the field of collective action and the provision of common services, to prevent the abusive use of natural resources that worsen climate change and land use, various associative structures can be designed in the form of a rural condominium, whether to manage a land bank, a vacant space, a water line, a multifunctional forest, a social agriculture area, a cooperative territory, a peri-urban park, with a view to managing common assets at imminent risk .
Once here, let us think, for example, of the triangle formed by the Mediterranean diet as a UNESCO asset, Algarve tourism as a driving activity and the traditional rural economy of the Algarve barrocal mountains as a factor of creative hyperlinking.
The Mediterranean Diet, a UNESCO intangible heritage, is an excellent pretext to trigger a reflection on the processes of modernization and innovation in the traditional rural Algarve, at the precise moment when the touristification of the Algarve economy can be instrumentalized for the best and worst reasons. In the first case, to calmly debate the restructuring of the traditional rural Algarve, in the second case, to surf the wave and take advantage of the commercial opportunism that will cross the Algarve in all directions.
Or, put another way, the asymmetric shock in the Algarve economy, caused by excessive touristification and the accelerated uberization that results from it, is not part of the Unesco cultural universe and the doctrine of preservation and valorization that is contained in its declarations of intangible heritage .
Final grade
What has been said takes us back to an old discussion between the options that favor technology, productivism and short-term profitability with sufficient mitigation of impacts on the ecosystem, and the options that favor emerging technologies of sustainable agroecology, with a slower return and greater circularity of all elements of the production cycle. There are two distinct approaches, but also two complementary learnings.
In the first case, we talk about productivism and agrosystem products, in the second, post-productivism and agroecosystem goods and services. In day-to-day practice, however, we practice a production system that is a mosaic of agricultures where subsistence family farming and low technological intensity coexist, capitalized precision agriculture and high technological intensity, and various intermediate-intensity agricultures in stages. differentiated areas of capitalization and agroecological transition.
In the end, however, there will always be a trade off between technology and ecosystem and a tourist flow in between.
When precision technologies find a point of balance with natural and cultural ecosystems, we will have reached a point of singularity and this reconciliation is, in itself, an immense source of value for the creative economy, collective territorial intelligence and tourist visitation flows. .
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