Institutional diversity in agricultural systems

Abstract

Successful governance of natural resources in agricultural systems requires the adaptation of institutions to specific social and environmental contexts. This adaptation, together with the history of the agricultural cases, results in a variety of rules, norms, and strategies used by local actors for resource sharing, i.e., institutional diversity. Here we explore this institutional diversity by quantifying and comparing the three dimensions of institutional diversity: 1) diversity of rule taxonomy, 2) diversity of grammatical components, and 3) diversity of the functionality of institutions. We coded institutions from transcripts of interviews with farmers from a selection of small-scale agricultural systems in Spain. Our results show not only the great institutional diversity that exists to adapt to even small contextual social and environmental differences, but also that traditional institutions are, in some cases, changing very rapidly, calling attention to the urgent need to document traditional institutions as an important part of our intangible cultural heritage.