Like other countries of the world, Costa Rica faced the challenge of dealing with a variety
of trade-offs when implementing sustainability goals in agriculture. Very often, economic promotion
is in conflict with goals regarding human and environmental health protection. Organic farming
practices could provide strategies to overcome some of these trade-offs. However, in Costa Rica, the
majority of farmers still relies on conventional farm practices. In this paper, I investigate the potential
for a sustainable transformation in Costa Rica’s agriculture by focusing on organic farming policies. I
shed light on the role local actors and organizations play in this process compared to other actor types.
I argue that local actors are “the agents of change” in these processes, as these are the target groups
of organic farming policies and are the ones who are asked to change their farm practices. Based
on survey data and network analysis, I was able to illustrate how differently integrated local actors
are compared to other actor types in Costa Rica’s implementation of organic farming policies. Local
actors show interest and willingness to further participate in land-use implementation processes
when institutional barriers are alleviated, and further promotion instruments are available.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:87521 |
| Date | 20 October 2023 |
| Creators | Gruber, Mirjam |
| Publisher | MDPI |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 7265 |
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