Assessment of the growth in social groups for sustainable agriculture and land management
Jules Pretty, Simon Attwood, Richard Bawden, Henk van den Berg, Zareen Pervez Bharucha, John Dixon, Cornelia Butler Flora, K Gallagher, Ken Genskow, Sue E. Hartley, Jan Willem Ketelaar, Japhet K. Kiara, Vijay Kumar, Yuelai Lu, Tom MacMillan, Anne Maréchal, Alma Linda Morales-Abubakar, Andrew Noble, P. V. Vara Prasad, Ewald Rametsteiner, John P. Reganold, Jacob I. Ricks, Johan Rockström, Osamu Saitô, Peter S. Thorne, Songliang Wang, Hannah Wittman, Michael Winter, Puyun Yang
Abstract
Non-technical summary Until the past half-century, all agriculture and land management was framed by local institutions strong in social capital. But neoliberal forms of development came to undermine existing structures, thus reducing sustainability and equity. The past 20 years, though, have seen the deliberate establishment of more than 8 million new social groups across the world. This restructuring and growth of rural social capital within specific territories is leading to increased productivity of agricultural and land management systems, with particular benefits for those previously excluded. Further growth would occur with more national and regional policy support.