Emerging Agro-Rural Complexities in Occident Mexico: Approach from Sustainability Science and Transdisciplinarity

Abstract

Rural and agricultural modernization and industrialization (RAMI) increased in recent decades in a multiscalar way. RAMI has implied the rural landscape transformation through the arrival of industrial models. These processes have not been linear or unidirectional; heterogeneities, opposites, mosaics, hybridizations, new interactions, problems, and tensions, between traditional and industrial agriculture and other agriculture types, have emerged. We tackle and problematized the RAMI processes, which is a complex and a real-world problem, from Sustainability Science (SS) and transdisciplinarity. Thus, considering studies and experiences in different rural areas in the world, an epistemological positioning is presented, which allows overcoming scientific frontiers and relating it to rural sustainability. We delve into the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin (LPB), Mexico, an area with a strong agricultural tradition (“milpa” systems). Recently, the presence of industrial agriculture (mainly avocado monoculture and berry greenhouses) has increased, occurring the coexistence between peasant-entrepreneurs, indigenous–non-indigenous, and new-rural. The article aims to understand comprehensively the emerging complexities from the RAMI, deepening LPB’s real case. The epistemological approach developed allow us to conceive the interaction and possible complementation between traditional agriculture, industrial agriculture and other agriculture types, and the emergence of an included middle that corresponds to an “emerging complexity”. Finally, relevant topics and questions are highlighted.