Population, territory and sustainable development

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The consolidation of an agrifood system around large transnational corporations, alongside freemarket
policies and structural adjustment in rural areas, have had much to do with the configuration of the
“new rurality” signalled by a number of researchers (Teubal, 2001). This new rurality perspective not
only emphasizes productive activity but recognizes the great importance of the management, use and
conservation of natural resources. It also recognizes environmental services as a means of invigorating the
economy in rural areas and building a more sustainable development model (Pérez, 2004). Pérez argues
that conservation and management are among the new functions allocated to the agrarian milieu as
economic activities that the rural population may pursue. But this new thinking on rurality and rural
development also means that such areas are not being conceived as only for agricultural activity but also
as being germane to the attainment of a better standard of living and as a place for leisure activities.
At the same time, agricultural technologies need to be developed to enable farmers to restore and
maintain soils and to make better use of water resources. Such technologies encourage the development of
clean agriculture by reducing the use of pollutants and pesticides, not only leading to better management
of natural resources but also improving people’s quality of life. Naturally, this new rurality also means
changes in institutions, stakeholder participation and the formation of rural development plans and
projects, since it is associated with local democratization and the attribution of value to local resources,
human and natural alike (Pérez, 2004).
The new rurality affords the rural milieu renewed value, leaving behind the notion that rural
means backwardness and is not part of a vision of progress and development. What is more, Rojas (2008)
notes that the new rurality broadens both the concept of agriculture and rurality’s own dimensions, since
it strengthens urban-rural linkages, non-agricultural rural employment, the provision of environmental
services, agro-environmental certifications or green seals, towns as services hubs, the active role of
communities and social organizations and ecological and cultural diversity as a form of capital.
As the following section discusses, ingrained poverty and land and income concentration are not,
in fact, preventing the changes the new rurality brings, but represent challenges that must be tackled from
a new rural development perspective. Rural development policies must accordingly adopt a new vision
from a territorial perspective.
D. POVERTY AND INTRARURAL INEQUALITY
Poverty is one of Latin America’s most entrenched characteristics. Although poverty has decreased in the
region, the rate has not fallen evenly among or within the countries. Around 53% of the rural population
lives in poverty today and, although that proportion has fallen in the past few decades (see table IV.11),
urban-rural poverty gaps remain in most of the countries.
A large proportion of rural-dwellers lack sufficient income to meet their basic needs and many
cannot afford even a basic food basket. Income insufficiency is moreover, accompanied by lacks in terms
of education, health, housing and basic services. Rural poverty occurs in a context of continual outmigration
to cities and to countries outside the region, rising social and infrastructure spending in almost
all the countries and, apparently, falling rural unemployment ECLAC/FAO/RIMISP, 2003).