This dissertation examines two contrasting visions of 'sustainable agriculture.' On the one hand, there is a 'global vision' for sustainable agriculture described in influential academic, policy and corporate circles. This vision finds that only industrial-scale agriculture is capable of meeting global demand for food, but it also recognizes the need to mitigate the negative ecological impacts of previous agricultural practices. It calls for a new 'green revolution' that would increase aggregate production while reducing the ecological impact of that production. In clear contrast to this global vision are the livelihood-centered, or 'local,' visions of two rural social organizations, the Italy-based Slow Food network and the international agrarian Via Campesina, the largest social movement in the world. Slow Food and Via Campesina visions of sustainable agriculture emphasize the place-based economic, social, and cultural production of smaller-scale agriculturalists. The organizations stress the landscape effects of heterogeneous production systems and ecologies. They seek place-specific, or endogenous, rural social and economic development, what could be called 'contemporary rurality.'

Dissertation research was guided by the broad questions: how do these internationalist social movements envision development for rural places, and how do these visions differ from the dominant model of agricultural development? A second order of questions follows: what are the immediate goals of agrarian movements in relation to dominant patterns of agricultural development to date, how do movements attempt to achieve these goals, and what, at base, are their proposals for the countryside?

These questions are addressed in three principal chapters. Chapter one is divided into two parts: the first describes the conventional arguments regarding 'sustainable agriculture' as they frame much of the debate of global food production; the second part offers critique of the FAO estimates and projections of demand that often underlie the argument for continued adoption of the corporate, industrialized model of food provision. Chapter two traces the history of post-WWII 'agrifood' systems and the rise of alternative agrarian movements in relation to these systems. Chapter three examines the politics embedded within specific projects for 'alternative' development, and the relation of these projects to the vision for a contemporary rurality.