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This chapter presents an overview of the ‘big’ data of Mediterranean agriculture, with a special focus on the four EU countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece), in order to provide a backdrop for the rest of cases analysed in the volume. In this regard, two thesis are discussed: the assumption that farming systems in the South have not followed the process of ‘productivist modernisation’ characterising post-war Northern European agricultural change, and that, precisely due to this reason, most holdings and regions from the South would have more possibilities to adapt to new approaches of multifunctional rural development.Thus, the chapter tackles both the static and dynamic structural traits of Southern agricultures and their differences with the North, as well as several aspects of the organisation of farming in the Mediterranean and other key components of productivist modernisation: farm intensification and specialisation. Later, the diffusion of multifunctional dynamics is addressed, in order to introduce some reflections about their meaning and scope in the Mediterranean regions. The chapter ends with a straightforward typology of Southern farming systems and a concluding section, which goes back to discuss the two initial theses.

This introductory chapter evidences the need to push again to the fore research undertaken in Southern European countries, highlighting its Mediterranean features and how they relate to old and new theoretical and political debates. Consequently, in this first chapter we describe the main aim of the book as well as how the subsequent chapters contribute to fulfill this quest outlining the structure of the book.

This concluding chapter presents a transversal reading of some key elements of Mediterranean agriculture and its pathways of transformation, in part under the lens of main theoretical paradigms, where, as the first section discuss, it has had a peripheral character. In this regard, the chapter tackles the impure nature (where allegedly productivist and non-productivist dynamics coalesce) of some agricultural pathways, at both the farm and the territorial levels. As it is discussed later, this relates to the role played by policies and the way Mediterranean decision-makers mediate EU regulations. Subsequently, three interwoven dimensions of the recent evolution of Mediterranean agriculture are analysed: the dynamics of family farming and the role played by family networks, the position of migrants in the evolution of agriculture and some hypothesis and clues about the implications of the current economic crisis for Southern farming systems. In the two last sections, the chapter ends discussing the theoretical and policy challenges posed by Mediterranean small-scale farming systems.

This chapter aims to analyse the evolution of competing paradigms and theoretical frameworks that have pervaded the debates on the present and future of agricultural and food systems and their associated rural areas. From this global overview, we will extract common features of paradigms that are being reproduced over time as well as highlight the innovations introduced. Particular attention will be paid to discuss the responses and contributions inspired by European Mediterranean-based research, setting up the framework that underlines the subsequent chapters of the volume.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

The corporate food regime is presented here as a vector of the project of global development. As such, it expresses not only the social and ecological contradictions of capitalism, but also the world-historical conjuncture in which the deployment of price and credit relations are key mechanisms of ‘accumulation through dispossession.’ The global displacement of peasant cultures of provision by dumping, the supermarket revolution, and conversion of land for agro-exports, incubate ‘food sovereignty’ movements expressing alternative relationships to the land, farming and food.

The expansion of the European Union into southern Europe calls for a re-examination of the anthropological analysis of rural Greek society. This chapter examines some of the changes that have affected rural households in the Argolida region of Greece, and how households have adapted. It is argued that the household continues to be an important site for constructing relations of production. However, there has been a significant shift from forms of stratification and exploitation based on gender, kinship and patronage to new forms based on nationality and ethnicity. The dependence of households on (mostly illegal) immigrant labor has both subsidized their rising standard of living and trapped them in a new regime of social inequality.

Montenegrin economy is characterized by large disparities in terms of level of economic development as well as regional development. Although the northern region of Montenegro offers a very good precondition for economic development in terms of its potentials, the situation is quite opposite. There are significant differences between the southern, central and northern region when it comes to development, income level and unemployment rate. With respect to natural resources and potential with which the northern region is endowed, agriculture emerges as one of the factors of economic development. Almost all future-oriented strategic activities recognize agriculture as an instrument for overcoming differences and thus ensuring sustainable development. Agriculture in Montenegro appears to be an instrument which can, coupled with an entrepreneurial activity, contribute to a better quality of life and thus the future sustainable development of the whole country and its individual regions.

This chapter deals with labour conditions and discrimination of migrant workers in Italy, with a particular focus on the agricultural sector in two Southern Italian areas: Northern Basilicata and Western Sicily. The first part of the chapter describes the history of migration to Italy and the most relevant transformations occurred over the last years, as well as an overview of the relevant legislation on migration and racial discrimination at work. The second part, on the basis of two ethnographic studies realized by the two authors, analyses the complex intertwinement of structural and symbolic violence in determining the conditions of exploitation and discrimination of migrant seasonal labourers in the two areas. The study focuses on three topics: piecework payment; the ghettoization and segregation of seasonal labourers; the system of informal and illegal labour intermediation called caporalato. It is argued that that the main source of symbolic violence is represented by the brokers called caporali, who are usually of the same nationality of the labourers. If, on a certain extent, migrant workers perceive their ghettoization, discrimination and exploitation as ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’, this is due to the communitarian relationships built and manipulated by the caporali. On the contrary, the State and the local administrations seem to act exclusively as a source of structural violence. The national legislation on migration, as well as the lack of public policies concerning labour intermediation, transport and accommodation for seasonal labourers, appears as the main reason of the vulnerability of migrant workers in the considered areas.

This chapter highlights some features of the current structure of Italian agriculture by focusing on the regional patterns of agrarian change. These patterns are followed mainly by comparing the data of the 5th and 6th Census of Agriculture and the data of holdings registered to the Chambers of Commerce. The analysis confirms the Northern-Southern dichotomy of Italian agriculture as the physical and economic dimensions of Northern regions’ holdings are appreciably higher than those in the South. Other traits of farms, not usually included in most traditional analyses, help explain that Northern-Southern dichotomy: the farmers’ educational level and the ICT availability on farms. The agriculture of Southern regions has been affected less by the structural adjustment and has maintained some traits of more ‘traditional’ farming. However, important innovations, such as organic farming and direct selling to ‘consumers in house’, have been adopted more readily by Southern farms. The marked regional duality of Italian agriculture corresponds to the several ways in which farmers and their activities interconnect with territorial development models that have shown a deep regional differentiation.