Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses how different degrees of rural-urban interaction in Rio´s metropolitan countryside give rise to spatial diversity, farming resilience, and rural innovation. Agency within the place-assemblages of farming communities is distributed through various human and non-human components.

Paper long abstract:

Agriculture in urban and peri-urban areas is an integral part of hybrid landscapes and stimulates local production and consumption of quality food that contributes to the development of dynamic farming systems. In opposition to regional and local policies, which do not fully recognise the diversity of agricultural environments and the potential of agriculture in the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro, the research identifies small-scale farming systems undergoing processes of adaptation. The diverse and dynamic strategies of smallholders in the countryside of Greater Rio illustrate how farmers adapt their farms to suit their personal interests, family situation, understandings and knowledge of the farm's agro-environmental conditions, regional traditions, and market opportunities.

The case studies show that social and organisational innovation plays a vital role in renewal at the farm level and in rural economies at the rural-urban interface. This paper discusses how farmers in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region combine social strategies creatively to adapt to spatial change and to strengthen resilience. Small-scale farmers have long played a significant role in shaping rural landscapes, and their necessarily embodied practices and experimental knowledges create a particular relationship between themselves and the land (Chambers et al., 1989; Fonte, 2008; Karisson, 2018; Šūmane et al., 2018). Agency within the place-assemblages of the farming communities is not concentrated with political leaders or entrepreneurial individuals but, rather, is distributed through various human and non-human components.