Écologie politique des paysans alternatifs de l’Empordà (Catalogne) : s’engager entre mer et montagne

• Main Author: Sabrina Doyon
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Réseau Développement Durable et Territoires Fragiles 2020-04-01
• Series: Développement Durable et Territoires
• Subjects: anthropology; Empordà; Spain; political ecology; alternative farming; ecological farming
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/developpementdurable/16601

The Empordà region in the north of Spanish Catalonia has seen the emergence, in the last 20 years, of small-scale farming which is an alternative to conventional agriculture and which combines an increasing use of ecological practices and a regional approach to food production. The present article examines this type of farming among wine - and olive-sector producers as well as, to a lesser degree, fruit and vegetable producers and livestock breeders. How have they succeeded in combining these two processes? What are the values that guide them in their practices? What are the social and economic repercussions of these initiatives? Using the political ecology approach, we explore the recent environmental changes in Empordà. The socio-economic and political context in which they have taken root represents the foundation on which small-scale, alternative farmers are basing their practices and their discourse. Our analysis revealed that they have their own unique model which combines the sea and the mountain, albeit somewhat ambiguously. As such, they shed light on the tensions and paradoxes that are inherent in this « alternative, ecological » approach.