The Future of Sustainability as a Product of the Present: Lessons from Modern Food in Ecuador

Journal title RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA'
Author/s Stephen Sherwood, Myriam Paredes, Joan Gross, Micaela Hammer
Publishing Year 2014 Issue 2014/2 Language English
Pages 21 P. 83-103 File size 230 KB
DOI 10.3280/RISS2014-002006
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Drawing on historical research in the northern highlands of Ecuador, the authors summarize how 75 years of state-supported agricultural modernization and subsequent food policies have led to diverse, wide-scale socio-environmental decline. Despite this global trend, they find considerable heterogeneity in familylevel farming and food practices, with highly diverse and important implications for human health, economy and the environment. Following a study of ‘positive deviance’, they argue that certain production-consumption patterns are more sustainable than others, representing a time-proven, yet largely neglected resource for policy reform. Nevertheless, Ecuador’s investment in modern food poses formidable institutional challenges to change, while sparking increasingly influential social counter-movements.

Keywords: Farming and food practices, heterogeneity, sustainability, Ecuador

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  • Cambio climático, biodiversidad y sistemas agroalimentarios: avances y retos a 10 años de la Ley Orgánica del Régimen de la Soberanía Alimentaria en Ecuador Myriam Paredes, Priscila Prado, Stephen Sherwood, pp.125 (ISBN:9789978105689)

Stephen Sherwood, Myriam Paredes, Joan Gross, Micaela Hammer, The Future of Sustainability as a Product of the Present: Lessons from Modern Food in Ecuador in "RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA'" 2/2014, pp 83-103, DOI: 10.3280/RISS2014-002006