From Agroecology and Law to Agroecological Law? Exploring Integration Between Scientia Ruris and Scientia Iuris

Rus, the rural phenomenon understood in its entirety, marks the plurality and the interdependence of different complex systems that are based jointly on the land as a central point of reference. “Rural” expresses a quid pluris as compared to “agricultural”: if agriculture is understood traditionally as an activity aimed at exploiting the land for the production of material goods for use, consumption, and private exchange, rurality marks the reintegration of agriculture into a wider sphere, not only productive but also social and cultural; not only material but also ideal, relational, historic, and symbolic; not only private but also public. The natural and social sciences (scientia ruris), in approaching rus, at first became specialized, multiplied, and compartmentalized in a plurality of “first-order” disciplines; later, above all in recent decades, they have set up a process of integration into agroecology as a “second-order” polyocular, transdisciplinary, and common platform. The law (scientia iuris) seems instead to be frozen at the first stage. Following a reductionistic and hyperspecialized approach, the law has deconstructed and shattered the complex universe of rus into disjointed legal elementary particles, multiplying the planes of analysis and regulation (agricultural law, business law, environmental law, landscape law, town planning law, etc.), without caring to construct linkage platforms among the various legal fields. In this chapter, after examining some important experiences underway internationally, it is asserted that scientia iuris should experiment with the development of an agroecological law, like that which agroecology is today for scientia ruris. Agroecological law should counteract the antinomic interlegalities (among the various legal fields that deal with rural phenomena) through tools of negative coordination and favor instead compatible interlegalities through tools of positive coordination. In the conclusions are proposed by way of example four types of coordination tools: agroecological information collecting and sharing (AICS), agroecological zoning (AZ), agroecological planning (AP), and agroecological impact assessment (AIA).