Abstract

CACERES, Daniel M.. Modern technologies: the perspective of the small farmers. Cuad. Desarro. Rural [online]. 2009, vol.6, n.62, pp.121-143. ISSN 0122-1450.

Drawing upon a case study the paper analyses how resource-poor farmers observe some of the technologies related with industrial agriculture, and what kind of impact these technologies have on their current socio-productive reality. The research uses qualitative-research methods and focuses on the study of farmers who currently are (or have been) growing tobacco in Misiones (Argentina). The findings suggest that these technologies show some problems when are used in the farming systems of resource-poor farmers. Firstly, some of them have problems to understand its underpinning logics, because industrial-agriculture technologies have been devised departing from a kind of technical knowledge that confronts their cognitive frameworks. Secondly, the socio-productive context in which some of these technologies are actually used is not appropriate for many modern technologies, especially those related to industrial pesticides. Thirdly, these technologies generate externalities that negatively impact environment and society.

Keywords : industrial agriculture; modern technologies; peasants; rural development.

        · abstract in Spanish | French     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )