Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Built
capital
Financial
capital
Natural
capital
Political
capital
Healthy ecosystem
Economic security
Social inclusion
Cultural
capital
Social
capital
Human
capital
FIGURE 13.1
Community capitals diagram.
community (bonding social capital) and with other groups and communities (bridg-
ing social capital). Political Capital is the ability of a group to turn its values and
norms into the standards for the society (such as universal education and access to
clean water) that are implemented through enforced rules and regulations. It involves
voice and power. Financial Capital includes the financial instruments, including but
not limited to money, that can be easily traded and monetized. There is a tendency
to put all the other capitals in terms of financial capital. While the role of the state
(political capital) under capitalism is to make it profitable to do what is for the com-
mon good, increasingly anything that is profitable, even if that profit is only for a few,
is assumed to be for the common good. Built Capital is the physical infrastructure,
buildings, roads, dams, sewer systems, railroads, and electronic technology that can
make other capitals more efficient—or can destroy them.
13.2.1 N
atural
C
apital
Natural capital includes air quality and the quality and quantity of water and of soil,
biodiversity, and landscape. It can be viewed as a set of resources to be extracted
or as a source of life that needs to be tended and cared for, depending on a group's
cultural capital.
Soil security is key to food security, and community action is often the best way
to increase both through sustainable intensification. For many agriculturalists, the
community is where the norms and values, as well as the appropriate cultural and
agricultural practices, are embedded. Communities can create healthy ecosystems,
economic security, and social inclusion by investing their multiple resources to
create new resources, or they can exhaust those resources by consuming them for
immediate benefit. When resources are invested to create new resources, they can
be referred to as
capitals
. Soil security, and thus food security, depends on how each
community invests its natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial, and built
capitals. Women are critical in achieving soil security, food security, and sustainable
intensification (Gladwin et al. 2002).
