Rural development and EU agricultural policy

development’s crucial dependence on linkages with the extra-local, as represented by markets, technology, policy, social trends, and in the EU availability of structural funding. Such networks can represent enabling opportunities, and local control of access to them enables local actors to undertake and sustain a distinctive way of life. From a practical standpoint, local strategies for the exploitation of niche markets, such as those for speciality foods or handcrafts, can be devel- oped through the use of appropriate extra-local product differentiation and marketing techniques OECD, 1995; Ilbery and Kneafsey, 1999; while from a conceptual viewpoint, local character can be translated into intellectual property through the use of extra-local regulatory frameworks such as the appellation d ’ origine controˆle´e system for French wines Moran, 1993. The dynamic ten- sion of inter-relations between the local and the extra-local forms much of the arena in which strategic choices can be made. Yet this tends to be neglected in conventional agricultural economic analysis which, despite empirically observable variability in the degrees of commoditisation practiced in different localities, treats each rural economic activity as a process to be optimised in relation to prevailing price and market relations. van der Ploeg 1992 shows that styles of farming, for example, vary in their technical and market orientation and are not simply derived from pre- vailing market and technological conditions. They are best seen as ‘multi-dimensional social con- structions’, part of the ‘cultural repertoire’ of rural communities, and the outcome of strategic reasoning by producers and communities medi- ated through networks of communication, co-op- eration and co-ordination. As the Welsh livestock example shows, the strategic consequences of net- work inter-relations are increasingly important for rural regions at a time of unfavourable product markets, food safety problems, and environmental concern. An ANT-based theory of rural development, therefore, considers the nature of the association between economic actors and the interactive bal- ance between local and extra-local forces. It high- lights the costs involved in network interaction, the power relations involved, and the extraction of value; and it can provide strategic guidance on local resource use, institutional intervention, tech- nological innovation, and the conditions under which local actors can retain control and value. Under the conventional modernist model of agri- culture, the distribution of control and value- added are perceived as increasingly in favour of the extra-local, forcing further decline on Eu- rope’s marginal rural regions. Re-valorisation of the local through endogenous development, how- ever, suggests that differentials of power and value-retention can be shifted in favour of the local. The growing diversification of production and consumption activity in rural areas means that rural resources have the opportunity to ‘re- define their own use and exchange value’ Mars- den et al., 1992 through an increase in the significance of local distinctiveness brought about by a forging of networks for postmodern eco- nomic ends.

4. Rural development and EU agricultural policy

Despite strong initial cultural roots Tracy, 1989, EU policy towards agriculture has shown little subsequent sensitivity towards ensuring a flourishing of the ‘domains’ within which tradi- tional and localised cultures have evolved, where cultural capital is economically important, and where ‘cultural multipliers’ 5 are particularly strong. In the context of this paper, the important issues are as follows. From its inception until 1992, the Common Agricultural Policy CAP concentrated largely on meeting farm income ob- jectives and on controlling the production sur- pluses that arose in some sectors. Policy support was concentrated primarily on regions and pro- ducers facing no particular disadvantage, and consequently rural communities in marginal re- gions suffered disproportionately from decline in agricultural activity. To the extent that such re- 5 Cultural multipliers are particularly important where mi- nority languages are involved. A thriving Welsh speaking agricultural population, for example, brings with it Welsh speaking shopkeepers and schoolteachers — a cultural net- work weakened by agricultural decline Hughes et al., 1995. gions and communities were repositories of tra- ditional cultures, negative cultural consequences were an important outcome. More recently, starting with the 1992 reforms and continuing with the Agenda 2000 proposals Commission of the European Communities, 1997, 1998, aware- ness has grown of the diversity of European agriculture in terms of resource endowments, farming methods and farming traditions. Policy has increasingly sought to give EU member states the means of taking better account of lo- cal conditions, subject to avoidance of distor- tions to competition and undermining of common policy management. The current CAP, therefore, has two strands. The first competi- tiveness strand is a response to external factors, and is principally characterised by lower product prices. The external pressures include the bud- getary implications of EU enlargement, and the world market oppurtunities, competitive pres- sures and international obligations of trade lib- eralisation. The second safeguards strand is a response to the internal consequences of lower product prices by means of compensatory pay- ments to farmers. The aims include shielding the most vunerable farmers from effects of lower prices, promoting rural development, and safe- guarding rural communities and the natural en- vironment. Although there are EU policies designed for the maintenance and development of Europe’s cultural wealth and traditions, overt support for cultural diversity is not a feature of the re- formed CAP. In broad terms, its competitive- ness strand has potentially damaging implications for cultural diversity and the valori- sation of the local through endogenous develop- ment; while its safeguards strand has potentially positive impacts, largely manifested through ter- ritorial designations for Structural Fund pur- poses e.g. the Objective 1 and Objective 5b development areas. The model of rural areas which the CAP seeks to promote gives priority to an agricultural sector that can compete on world markets, together with support expendi- ture that explicitly recognises the multi-func- tional nature of agriculture, especially its role in environmental care and its contribution to em- ployment and incomes in rural areas. In terms of the theme of this paper, the model has a number of important shortcomings. It is self- consciously interventionist rather than ethically- driven; intervention increasingly needs to be justified in cost-benefit terms in relation to the value of the public goods and services provided in rural areas; and traditional cultures are there- fore constantly vulnerable to political whim and budgetary pressure. The result is that farmers operate in a policy environment that is per- ceived as short-term, unstable and uncertain, and therefore unconducive to long-term invest- ment Clark, 1997. Equally, farmers operate in the knowledge that they survive on sufferance, dependent on public subsidy and welfare, a point illustrated for rural Wales in Table 1. The arguments of this paper suggest an alter- native view of rural development to that under- lying the CAP, a view which coincides with what Ray 1998 terms the ‘culture economy’ approach to rural development. Under this ap- proach, traditional cultures are explicitly treated as resources for rural development networks, rather than as legacies to be conserved. The ap- proach has two strands. First, a traditional cul- ture can be turned outwards and marketed, either explicitly as an engine of development to attract inward investment or regional develop- ment assistance, or implicitly in the form of products and services with a cultural compo- nent. Table 2 gives examples, in selected rural regions in the EU, of such products and ser- vices, all of which involve complex production, marketing, institutional and consumer networks. Such outward-looking culture economy strate- gies, with origins in Weber’s ‘motivational’ as- pects of culture, directly connect territorial localities and local actors with wider national and international markets and development net- works. Second, following the Tocquevillian ‘so- cial capital’ aspect of culture, a traditional culture can be turned inwards and used to facili- tate networks which animate local and regional development. The germ of such a local capacity- building approach exists in the EU’s ‘Leader’ Table 1 Livestock subsidies as a proportion of farming output and income in rural Wales a Hill cattle and sheep Farm type Upland cattle and sheep Hill sheep 1997 1998 66 756 61 130 48 285 1 Output £farm 10 679 2 Income £farm 6027 9653 23 099 24 040 12 501 3 Subsidy £farm 3 As percent of 1 39 35 26 216 207 249 3 As percent of 2 1998 1999 64 507 57 381 42 802 4 Output £farm 5 Income £farm 5051 6599 1390 29 367 32 154 15 292 6 Subsidy £farm 56 6 As percent of 4 46 36 6 As percent of 5 581 487 1100 a Subsidy includes hill livestock compensatory allowances, sheep annual premia and suckler cow premia. Income is net farm income, excluding breeding livestock stock appreciation. Source, Jenkins 1999. programmes, although these currently represent a minuscule proportion of total EU rural funding Midmore, 1998. The result is a participatory form of development, which involves the mobili- sation of both socio-cultural and economic net- works and the embedding of development in existing stable and lasting socio-cultural and eco- nomic structures. Such local animation can also provide communities with the will, rationale and power to resist the encroachment of inappropriate trends in modernity where these clash destruc- tively with local ethics. In contrast to the CAP approach, this culture economy view of rural development integrates farming closely into local rural economies and produces a long-term view whose stability and certainty is conducive to long- term investment by local actors and communities and by outside agencies. It also means that local economic actors are perceived as less dependent on public subsidy and on outside political whim and budgetary pressures. Traditional cultures are then less vulnerable to decline, linked productively with development, and able to realise their poten- tial for enhancing social, economic and environ- mental sustainability. The culture economy provides a networking framework in which local actors can develop strategies for integrating local economies with external markets and for pursuing development paths which accord with local val- ues.

5. Concluding note