Rural development in Flanders: a scientific assessment

Guido Van Huylenbroeck

Rural development in Flanders:

a scientific assessment

Content

• What does rural development means?

• Role of agriculture

• Strategies

• Assessment of passed rural development actions (general + Flanders)

• Lessons for the future: a territorial approach

• Conclusions

Definition of rural development

• Hodge (1986) : “An overall improvement in the welfare of rural residents and in the contribution which the rural resources make more generally to the welfare of the population as a whole”

• This emphasizes the new position of rural areas in European society:

rural areas fulfil multiple functions essential for urbanised populations (yellow: production, green: nature and blue : residence services)

• Rural development is then about how rural areas can better perform their functions and so can not be seen independent from urban processes.

• So rural development is then not only about economic growth, but also about economic and social cohesion and integrity

• It has also a prospective dimension: the dynamics of rural areas in terms

of possible and desired evolutions.

Role of agriculture in rural development

• Agriculture produces both commodity and non-commodity outputs (multifunctionality).

• The direct economic contribution of agriculture is declining, but the value/significance of other outputs increasing.

• This value can be

‣ Direct: higher prices for houses in rural areas or increase in tourism activities or accommodation prices (Vanslembrouck et al))

‣ indirect: higher well-being and thus better performance of such regions

• Role of agriculture in the functioning of the rural system (systemic

approach) should be analysed.

• Following strategic stages can be distinguished in time:

− 60 - 80: Modernisation of agricultural sector

− 80 - 00: Integrated agricultural policies (agro-environmental regulations, cross compliance)

− 00 - ? : Territorial and bottom-up approaches

• This means a gradual shift from sector approaches to territorial approaches

• However for evaluation of the past, we should refer to the old paradigm as that was the leading paradigm for passed policies.

Strategies to rural development

Evaluation of rural development policies

• In general it is not easy to measure the contribution of rural development policies to local economic

development

• Reasons:

- Lack of good methodologies (regional I.O.- analysis not yet well developed)

- Lack of (adequate) data

- Small contributions in comparison with general economic

conditions

General evaluation results

• In general scientific studies are not conclusive on the contribution of EU Rural development policies.

• Most RD programmes evaluations only show a slight impact on economic dynamics of territories (Schmitt et al., 2003).

• The problem of non-focussing and lack of a coherent local framework is often mentioned.

• Most RD policies focus on offsetting weaknesses/

disadvantages (income, environmental or territories) and

not on a dynamic economic development.

Evaluation of Flemish PDPO

- Economic impact:

• Impact on employment and stabilisation of rural population: nihil to very small

• Impact on income in agriculture: limited positive but a positive incentive to diversification of incomes (AEMs, other diversification)

• Investment support gives higher survival possibilities for starting farms

• No or very small chain and territorial competitiveness approaches (low multiplier effects)

- Environmental impact:

• Main focus on reduction of negative impacts

• difficult to assess,

• no clear objectives regarding role of nature and environmental resources

in territorial development

- General impact

• Low coordination among measures with as a result no or very low synergy effects on both development of agriculture as local

development (no chain approach and no local territorial approach).

• Low multiplier and spill over effects between sectors because of lack of coherence in vision and actions.

• Spatial and horizontal/vertical dimension is mostly lacking.

• Still high dead weight payments (paying for status quo). This questions benchmarking.

- Importance of PDPO (and other RD initiatives):

• Mind shift

• Small contribution to promoting new role of agriculture

Evaluation of Flemish PDPO

Lessons for a new RD-approach

• In the midterm evaluation recommendations and also in the new EU approach a more territorial approach is promoted.

• Leading principles of this approach should be:

− Pursuing a policy of territorial economic development and not only one of offsetting (environmental, income or territorial) disadvantages

− Policies based on existing linkages between rural and urban (certainly in our densely populated context)

− Differentiated approach according to role of a territory in the coming decades at regional and global level

• This requires a territorial approach focussing on strengths and

opportunities for rural activities in a specific region (see Ramos,

2005)

The territorial approach (1)

The territorial approach (2)

The territorial approach (3)

The territorial approach (4)

The territorial approach (5)

Can territorial approach work ?

• Internationally some good examples such as Parmagiano region (It), Produits terroires (Fr), Pata Negra in South Spain

• Own research in the peri-urban region around Brussels shows that local context can make difference in diversification and AEMs uptake

• Success requires good SWOT analysis at regional level

• Need of building social (confidence and capacity for collective action) and human (knowledge for leading processes and systems) capital

• Need for new institutions (reinforcing local policy level) and methods

(e.g. discours approach)

Conclusions

• Rural development questions the role of agriculture in society.

• Support to agriculture and rural areas/sectors will in future increasingly be motivated by their contribution to the whole (urban) population.

• RD-strategies should be able to strengthen this contribution and thus the economic development of regions (multiplier and spill over effects).

• Territorial approach can be basis of such (bottom-up) RD

policy.