Rural development: some tentative conclusions

The recent general economic and financial crisis underlines that Rural development is, above all, an unfolding process. It is a complex flow of activities through time. Hence, its nature, dynamics, scope and impact can very readily change in the course of even short periods of time – the more so since the context in which rural development processes are taking place is constantly changing. Equally, rural development produces new knowledge both at the grassroots level and at that of state agencies. This knowledge contributes to enlarging the, often contradictory, dynamics of rural development. In the article is investigated the RD dynamic ant its consequences at theoretical and political level. The focus in on the role that RD processes can play in enhancing the resilience of agriculture and food production. Rural development implies that farming is rooted in new circuits of reproduction that function alongside the main agricultural and food Pluriactivity, multifunctionality and the regrounding of farming upon locally available resources come to the fore as new fields that help make today’s agriculture more resilient to the disturbances introduced by the main commodity markets It is precisely within this context that RD, the associated construction of new, nested markets and multifunctional farming are gaining strategic importance. The newly emerging nested markets provide a new circuit for reproduction. Together with other circuits for reproduction (pluriactivity and new forms of cost reduction) they allow multifunctional farms to continue to produce for the general food markets.