Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the community to which they belong. 20 Similarly, the sociologist Charles Perrow states that
“small organizations are linked together by a sense of community of fate, rather than a link
based on employees sharing the goals of the owners and top executives of a big organiza-
tion.” 21
The emergence of production districts as an organizing frame for modern, technologically
sophisticated economies is being complemented by a body of scholarship and writing on civil
society, civic community, and civic engagement. Social scientists, especially political scient-
ists and sociologists who have adopted a “civic” perspective, are now challenging the as-
sumption that a more globally integrated and corporately managed economy is the “best” and
perhaps “only” development path that will lead to enhanced social and economic welfare for
workers and communities. 22 The civil society perspective meshes with the belief that small-
to medium-size production enterprises can serve as the foundation of modern industrial eco-
nomies. At the local level, the civic community is one in which residents are bound to a place
by a plethora of local institutions and organizations. 23 Business enterprises are embedded in
institutional and organizational networks. 24 And the community, not the corporation, is the
source of personal identity, the topic of social discourse, and the foundation for social cohe-
sion. 25
Two Models of Agricultural Development
While a comprehensive theory of civic community as it relates to agricultural development
is still being constructed, the outlines of such a theory can be discerned. In table 5.1, I com-
pare selected dimensions of the dominant commodity-focused and market-based approach to
agricultural development with an approach based on civic community. There are several fun-
damental organizational and operational differences between the two approaches, apart from
the labels that are attached to each.
Table 5.1. Two Models of Agricultural Development
Conventional agriculture
Civic agriculture
Social Theory
Neoclassical economics:
Pragmatism:
Modernization
Sustainability
Globalization
Civic community
Biological Theory
Experimental biology:
Ecological biology:
Reductionist
Holistic
Emphasis on traits
Emphasis on processes
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