Title: Environmental impact of panela food-processing industry: sustainable agriculture and local agri-food production systems

Authors: Denis Requier-Desjardins, Gonzalo Rodriguez Borray

Addresses: Centre d'Economie et d'Ethique pour l'Environnement et le Developpement (C3ED), University of Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, 47 Bld. Vauban, 78047 Guyancourt Cedex, France. ' CORPOICA – Programa Nacional de Maquinaria Agricola y Pos-cosecha, C.I. Tibaitata, km 14 via a Mosquera, Colombia

Abstract: Environmental valuation ||multi-stakeholder|| processes, as advocated by ecological economics, often have a strong local character. Critical Natural Capital cannot be defined without referring to a given geographical scale, very often local in terms of the definition of the environmental resource at stake and the relevant stakeholders involved in the evaluation and decision process. In this setting, environmental valuation processes cannot be disentangled from socio-economic dimensions of local social development, as shown by various examples and especially by the one of local agri-food systems of panela production in specific areas of Colombia. While there exist cost-effective technological innovations that can reduce the ecological impact of the panela commodity chain, these innovations can be fully implemented only if the producers can rely on anticipations of the development of a market for quality biological panela that can be traced back to specific areas of production.

Keywords: Colombia; critical natural capital; environmental valuation; geographical proximity; local agri-food systems; panela; sustainable agriculture; sustainable development; ecological economics; socio-economic dimensions; social development; technological innovation; food processing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSD.2004.005956

International Journal of Sustainable Development, 2004 Vol.7 No.3, pp.237 - 256

Published online: 06 Jan 2005 *

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