With the development of the industrial economy, a series of problems arose derived from its activity. Among the main problems of this activity, it is worth mentioning the impact it has on the environment and on human societies, which do not benefit as a whole from capitalist activity despite generating huge profits. However, it is clear that, to satisfy human needs, it is necessary to develop economic activities in all areas. Due to this situation, in the second half of the 20th century, various systems arose aimed at combining the capitalist economy with models that were more respectful and sustainable with the environment and all the individuals that are part of it. One of these models is what has come to be called the bioeconomy, which aims to unify the traditional economy with biology, adapting it to the same processes carried out by nature when managing existing resources. If you want to delve a little deeper intowhat is the bioeconomy, its definition and examples , keep reading AgroCorrn and we will tell you about it.
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What is the bioeconomy: simple definition
There are different authors who make mention of the concept of bioeconomy and, depending on the case we take as a reference, we will see that each one has its own nuances and contributes its specific elements in the paradigm. However, in all cases, when talking about the bioeconomy, reference is being made to an original idea, which is the management carried out by the biology of natural resources . For the bioeconomy, ecosystems are environments that must manage available resources in a similar way to how the human economy does. In both cases, individuals must manage available resources in order to meet their needs.
However, unlike what happens with the traditionally human economy, the biological economy of ecosystems is articulated in a model of symbiosis in which all the individuals of the ecosystem participate. In this way, holistic economic cycles are established and perfectly integrated with the system as a whole, which guarantees the most efficient management of available resources, as well as reducing the entropy effects derived from economic activity.
The bioeconomy model starts from this reality and assumes that the human economy is one more evolution of the biological natural economy but that, in this case, it must be reformulated so as not to account only the monetary aspect, but in the set formed by all the elements that make up your activity. In other words, the effects that human economic activity has on the ecosystem must also be accounted for as part of the impact. Thus, the bioeconomic model aspires to reformulate the human economy so that it is in symbiosis with the biological ecosystem as a whole, minimizing the impact on the environment and guaranteeing sustainable models. in the long term by means of a responsible use of the available resources that allows the efficient reproduction of these resources.
The bioeconomy and the idea of progress
One of the fundamental elements of the bioeconomy is its conception of progress, radically opposed to the more classical idea of it. According to the traditional version of classical economics, progress must be understood from a purely Darwinian perspective. That is, the competition for available resources will promote the survival of the strongest organisms, while the weakest will be eliminated and, therefore, expelled from the ecosystem.
On the contrary, the bioeconomy affirms that this Darwinian vision is insufficient, since, although in nature there is competition, it is really cooperation that guarantees the survival of organisms . In this case, the bioeconomy reformulates Darwin’s original evolutionary theory and establishes that the goal of life, indeed, is survival, but denies the need for it to be carried out solely through competition. On the contrary, it affirms that the organisms that have the greatest capacity for survival and evolution are not the strongest, but those that have the most capacity for cooperation both with their own species and with the ecosystem as a whole.
According to this view, the most independent organisms, being also the most isolated, are those with the least ability to progress and, consequently, they are the ones that will first be eliminated and expelled from the ecosystem equation. In this way, the bioeconomy considers progress as the ability to align itself with the ecosystem as a whole, understanding as a need for human progress that it be carried out inserted within the biological world to which it belongs, not through separation or exploitation of the environment and the biological world.
Bioeconomy and sustainable development: examples
With all of the above, the bioeconomy is committed to models of economic activity that are sustainable in the long term, as well as models that can be holistically inserted into the environment and the ecosystem in which they are located.
A good example of bioeconomy or biological economy is grazing , which allows the development of a human economic activity at the same time that the work of cleaning the mountains through transhumance is carried out, or grazing in continuous movement. Another example would be crop rotation, which consists of alternating the type of plants that are planted in the same soil. This allows that the soil in question does not run out and ends up being sterile, since each plant has specific needs, the soil can be recovered without problems while still being useful in the economic activity in which it has been located. Likewise, the examples of the bioeconomy are not limited to the primary sector of the economy, but could also be found in models of sustainable tourism, waste management that allow the creation of circular economy models , local and environmentally sustainable industries. environment and with society, etc.
In reality, the bioeconomy could be applied to any economic activity, since its fundamental characteristic passes through the implementation of said economic activity but doing so within a holistic and symbiotic model with the rest of the ecosystem that surrounds it.
Now that you know what the bioeconomy is, with its definition and examples, you may also be interested in reading about What is natural capitalism .
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