Apple production in search of alternative rural futures beyond extended urbanisation in peripheral agrarian hinterlands. Monocultures as dynamic, more-than-human assemblages

This contribution calls for re-framing the rural-urban connections concerning agrarian production within extended urbanisation. The ongoing industrialisation of agriculture shows the 'rural' space as a transformative geography challenging the persisting tendency to view it as an autonomous landscape in contrast to the urban and forms of urbanisation. The article analyses apple farming in Val di Non in Trentino, a northern area of Italy where the cohabitation between apple production and the local community has become controversial. Actor-network theory and assemblage thinking serve as methodological tools to explore controversies and contingencies emerging from different entities. The conflictual assemblage of apples, pesticides, pathogens, insects, supply-chain operations, growers, and local communities opens a small space for manoeuvre and suggests an alternative scenario for human and nonhuman cohabitation. This potential cohabitation offers a lens through which to illuminate forms of intermediate rural futurity that diverge from the dominant political discourses around apple production.