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Agriculture and society: Remarks on transformations and new social profiles in the case of Italy

Agriculture and society: Remarks on transformations and new social profiles in the case of Italy In this paper the authors analyze the two most important interrelated processes of social change in Italian agriculture: first the increasing productive specialization of family farming, both full and part-time, lending to the persistence of small farms but also to their growing integration and complementarity with other economic activities; and second the increasing heterogeneity of agricultural workers accompanied by the destructuring of their strong working-class identity, which had matured in the previous decades. This identity, however, also reflected a deep separation between agricultural laborers, their labor market and institutions, and the rest of the working class. The authors argue that these changes are progressively contributing to the full integration of agricultural social relations within an increasingly complex society. The analysis of these two processes in recent Italian experience shows that this trend towards integration differs totally from the hypothesis often advanced in the past according to which the integration of agriculture would occur through the development of green factories, more and more similar to large Fordist manufacturing plants. On the contrary, at least in present-day Italy, integration means increasing heterogeneity, also of organizational patterns in manufacturing, and growing inter-dependence. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Agriculture and Human Values Springer Journals

Agriculture and society: Remarks on transformations and new social profiles in the case of Italy

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References (32)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright
Subject
Philosophy; Ethics; Agricultural Economics; Veterinary Medicine/Veterinary Science; History, general; Evolutionary Biology
ISSN
0889-048X
eISSN
1572-8366
DOI
10.1007/BF02219421
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In this paper the authors analyze the two most important interrelated processes of social change in Italian agriculture: first the increasing productive specialization of family farming, both full and part-time, lending to the persistence of small farms but also to their growing integration and complementarity with other economic activities; and second the increasing heterogeneity of agricultural workers accompanied by the destructuring of their strong working-class identity, which had matured in the previous decades. This identity, however, also reflected a deep separation between agricultural laborers, their labor market and institutions, and the rest of the working class. The authors argue that these changes are progressively contributing to the full integration of agricultural social relations within an increasingly complex society. The analysis of these two processes in recent Italian experience shows that this trend towards integration differs totally from the hypothesis often advanced in the past according to which the integration of agriculture would occur through the development of green factories, more and more similar to large Fordist manufacturing plants. On the contrary, at least in present-day Italy, integration means increasing heterogeneity, also of organizational patterns in manufacturing, and growing inter-dependence.

Journal

Agriculture and Human Values – Springer Journals

Published: Sep 27, 2005

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