Sustainability Governance Across Multiple Scales: Implications for Agricultural Production of Chia, Quinoa and Jojoba in Argentina

Food systems are gaining attention as an important area for sustainability transitions as they are increasingly linked to the transgression of several planetary boundaries. A lot of research has focussed on how to make the production of major agricultural commodities more sustainable. What has received much less attention are “local” crops, by which we mean crops that have a marginal production volume on a global scale, but which may be very important to a particular community. Local crops have attracted interest from both sides of the global value chains in which they are involved. From the supply side, local crops are seen as an alternative to dominant crops such as soy, maize or sugar cane, that have been linked to the overexploitation of soils and ecosystems, the use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, and tend to benefit transnational and national elites while often displacing local communities. From the demand side, there has been a shift in the logic of crop quality standards, where environmental and social conditions of production become relevant differentiators. However, policy makers and scholars have focused mostly on the sustainability governance of dominant crops. The focus on private and voluntary certification that was prevailing for a long time and preferred by the private sector has produced mixed results at best and is in the process of being complemented with hybrid mechanisms linking certification with mandatory regulations and, more recently, stricter supply chain legislation in European countries importing agricultural commodities from other parts of the world. Our focus on local crops expands the literature on the sustainability governance of agricultural production. Within a given country, dominant and local crops are produced under the umbrella of a complex web of global and local governance mechanisms. We examine the interaction between the local and global governance mechanisms of local crops and their implications for sustainability. We focus on the production of chia, jojoba and quinoa in northwestern Argentina, three crops that are marginal at the national level but very important at the sub-national level. We analysed 20 semi-structured interviews including farmers, processing companies and cooperatives, government actors, independent researchers and consultants. Primary data was triangulated with documentary sources, such as sector reports and academic literature. Our findings show that there are different agricultural production models of local crops and these are associated with different visions of sustainability. How different local and global governance mechanisms interact matters for the prevalence of certain production models and their associated visions of sustainability. In the case of chia, the lack of specific local governance has allowed actors to make strategic choices aimed at capturing the surplus offered by private certification systems, and organic production has become dominant. The case of jojoba, with initially strong local governance oriented towards export, shows a mixture of both organic and biodynamic production. In the case of quinoa, the strong local governance of cooperatives and the provincial state, oriented towards subsistence and the domestic market, has contributed to the spread of agroecological production.