Agriculture, environment and natural resources

Rosanna Salvia (), Giovanni Quaranta (), Marco Maialetti () and Luca Salvati ()

Chapter 1 in Rural Sustainability and Competitiveness, 2025, pp 1-13 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Framing a discourse about ‘rural development’ into a broader ‘sustainability’ perspective is a challenging task, considering the tight interconnection between the quest for economically viable food production – especially in marginal and peripheral (inland) areas – and the pressing demand for environmental quality in more accessible and congested rural districts. Taking account of research and policy targets, economic development has recently turned towards a dominant notion of ‘environmental sustainability’ as a key attribute of any development path in advanced economies. Being envisaged as a socio-economic problem and a stringent ecological issue at the same time, the level of rural development – and how this economic process ex ante reflects ‘sustainability’ criteria – appears structurally related to a given production system, in turn affected by lifestyle changes and modifications in consumption patterns. Assuming a notion of ‘progress’ intrinsically grounded on the uneven expansion of produced goods, this process was increasingly based on a principle according to which economic growth would automatically lead to an increase in social well-being. These business dynamics, however, call for a reflection on the dominant development model and the need to redirect it towards the construction of ‘sustainable human well-being’ paths, with a specific focus on rural areas. By hypothesizing that the improvement of people's living conditions does not only depend on the growing availability of goods – being instead leveraged by the fair distribution of wealth – this work introduces a debate on the reduction of the environmental impacts of economic growth and its importance in sustainable rural development. As a guarantee for stable conditions towards well-being over time and space, the notion of intergenerational equity – preserving the ability of future generations to take advantage of the resources that are now available to current generations – is intimately connected with this issue. It may definitely contribute to a broader discussion on local ‘sustainability trajectories’ within a ‘rural’ perspective characteristic of long-term development paths.

Keywords: Economic growth; Natural capital; Food production; Indicators; Advanced economies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035357710
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