Methodoligical proposal for the activation of localized agroalimentary systems in Argentina. Irene VELARDE

• Profesor Adjunto Irene VELARDE

Abstract :

Argentina, a country which produces foods for the world, is currently in a paradoxical situation: the exportation of commodities is ever increasing, but poverty rates are also increasing.

Agricultural policies have not yet solved the conflict arising from such a contradiction. They are centered on an exclusively agricultural treatment of the situation and based on programs aiming at the enhancement of production and productivity of those products which generate currency income, disregarding the fact that rural affairs involve other very significant dimensions.

In this highly critical context, the Faculty of Agrarian and Forest Sciences of the National University of La Plata carried out a project with small wine producers from Berisso –a city 70 km away from the City of Buenos Aires–, based on the activation of a typical product: the wine of Berisso coast. The investigation project was developed from 1999 to 2009 and it allowed constructivist learning and the recovery of know-how and the territorial identity of traditional producers, by means of the recognition of their practices and the product’s anchorage to a specific territory. Innovation was generated by the different actors, adapting their ways of producing and marketing to a successful valuation scheme agreed by consensus.

This case is interesting to outline a methodology of activation of Localized Agroalimentary Systems (SIAL), defined as “organizations of production and services (agricultural production units, agroalimentary companies, service companies, gastronomic companies…) associated, by their characteristics and functioning, to a specific territory. Means, products, people, institutions, knowhow, alimentary behavior and relationship networks are combined into a form of agroalimentary organization in a given geographical space” (Muchnik J., Sautier D., Cirad-SAD, 1998). Localized agroalimentary systems take the specificity of the local and its interaction with the global as a starting point. The common objective of such contributions is to foster territorial development through the valuation of local products, especially food.

The concept of system implies the interaction of different elements. The SIAL approach consists, in the first place, in the delimitation of such systems and the identification of their components, in order to ensure an adequate methodological tool for the coordination of the elements and the stability and efficiency of the systems. SIAL include a wide variety of situations, from productions destined for local markets or self-consumption to productions destined for exportation (Muchnik, J. 2008).

This paper presents a methodological proposal originated from practical work and focused not on recipes established beforehand such as shortening chains, horizontal integration, production of specialties, etc, but rather on the understanding of what people are, know, want and can do.

The proposal for the activation of SIAL comprises the following phases:

• identification of system components
• participative diagnosis of local resources
• training and information generation for the solution of technical problems (investigation or specificexperimentation)
• elaboration of sustainable systemic projects