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Paper short abstract:

Smallholder economies follow different rules than other capitalist exchanges, in part because agriculture demands particular social and biological relationships tied to a local landscape. In decentering growth, we see a more accurate accounting of farmer decision-making and rural aspiration.

Paper long abstract:

I explore scholarship in degrowth and JK Gibson-Graham’s Diverse Economies to understand alternative agricultural production, including brief case studies drawn from empirical work in the US, India, and Eastern Europe. Established alternatives to extractive or plantation models of capitalist agriculture like organic or fair trade certification can still privilege growth, commodity production, or expansion as key goals. These metrics obfuscate the larger transformative potential of alternative agriculture in reorganizing production toward long-term stability of both community and place. With its emphasis on collective political organization, degrowth offers a different set of metrics by which to judge the potential of diverse alternative agricultural economies. On the other hand, agriculture forces degrowth to face difficult questions around labor, productivity, ecological plasticity, and technological change. Scholars from environmental anthropology, rural sociology, and critical agrarian studies have argued that the smallholder economies follow different rules than other capitalist exchanges, in part because agriculture demands particular social and biological relationships tied to a local landscape. While many small and alternative farmers pursue certain kinds of growth, much of their social and ecological work is motivated by factors apart from capitalist growth. In decentering growth, this approach permits a more accurate accounting of farmer decision-making and rural aspiration.