Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning Farmers ...

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Farmers, Businessmen or Green Entrepreneurs? Producers of New Rural Goods and Services in Rural Areas Under Urban Pressure a

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Kjell Andersson , Erland Eklund & Minna Lehtola

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Swedish school of Social Science, University of Helsinki , Helsinki, Finland Published online: 13 Mar 2009.

To cite this article: Kjell Andersson , Erland Eklund & Minna Lehtola (2009) Farmers, Businessmen or Green Entrepreneurs? Producers of New Rural Goods and Services in Rural Areas Under Urban Pressure, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 11:1, 29-43, DOI: 10.1080/15239080902774960 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15239080902774960

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Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2009, 29– 43

Farmers, Businessmen or Green Entrepreneurs? Producers of New Rural Goods and Services in Rural Areas Under Urban Pressure KJELL ANDERSSON, ERLAND EKLUND & MINNA LEHTOLA

Downloaded by [88.6.83.52] at 01:16 03 October 2014

Swedish school of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

ABSTRACT In this paper, the discourses on multifunctional agriculture, the consumption countryside and environmental drivers vis-a`-vis rural production have been tested against the material gathered in the RURBAN project comparing five European countries. It is concluded that all three discourses have a bearing on production of new rural goods and services (RGS), although there are considerable variations between different countries. For instance, specific national factors such as nature and the regulation system seem to form RGS production and the new rural economy in significant ways. Also urban pressure acts as an important intertwining variable. The linkage between environment and RGS production becomes enhanced if green ‘life-style entrepreneurs’ are taken into consideration. KEY WORDS: Rural goods and services, producers, multifunctional agriculture, consumption countryside, green entrepreneurs, urban pressure

Introduction There is today rather widespread consensus on the fact that modern, conventional, agriculture faces serious problems, that it must be restructured thoroughly and that it also is about to lose its grip as the main force in rural areas (Van der Ploeg & Roep, 2003). Instead, agriculture is in many places only one industry and one factor, among others. There is also generally a vision that tourism, gastronomy, nature protection, second homes, etc., form the basis of the ‘new rural economy’ and that they also may be the factors that determine rural development (Garrod et al., 2006; Marsden, 1999; Mormont, 1990; Nilsson, 2002; Oliver & Jenkins, 2003). However, ‘fortune telling is difficult and especially fortune telling about the future’, as the Swedish writer Falstaff, fakir puts it. Therefore, most rural researchers have a vague vision of the future in rural areas or present diverging visions. It may be that new theoretical concepts such as the countryside capital Correspondence Address: Kjell Andersson, Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, PO Box 16, 00014 Helsinki, Finland. Tel.:þ35 8919128463. Email: kjell.andersson @helsinki.fi 1523-908X print/1522-7200 Online/09/010029-15 # 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/15239080902774960


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(both material and immaterial) as a basis for integrated activities in the countryside (Garrod et al., 2006) may further the discussion but this has yet to be seen. The aim of this paper is to address the question of the future in rural areas through one group of actors that have a decisive influence on rural development, producers of new rural goods and services (RGS). These actors have been studied in five European countries in the EU-funded research project ‘Building Rurban Relations’ (RURBAN) (Overbeek & Terluin, 2006). In each country, two case study regions have been selected (10 regions in total, Table 1). The study regions include a rural area near a metropolitan area and a rural area beyond the metropolitan influence, but near a tourist amenity area. By asking the question ‘who are these actors?’, we may gain considerable information about the current state of affairs and probably also the future in different European rural regions. Several groups of actors with different implications for the rural future can be hypothesized. A large group of farmers among the RGS producers may, for example, indicate a ‘linear’ development from conventional farming to multifunctional use with agriculture still in a very strong position in the rural areas. An influx of newcomers, for its parts, may indicate a switch to a countryside freely chosen as the place of residence and work by people from all parts of the society, for example, because of green values (Mormont, 1990). Big firms handling the growing tourist business, on the other hand, may signal the dystopia of rural areas ‘subsumed’ under the logic of the globally expanding tourist industry (Meethan, 2001). The regions studied represent, on the one hand, areas close to big cities and, on the other hand, areas with a lively tourist economy. Therefore, we may expect that they exhibit traits of ‘the new rural economy’ envisaged above and to some extent also show the way forward for rural areas. However, the areas are also exposed to various degrees of urban pressure in the form of intense building and construction activity, increasing population, expanding tourist industry, etc., and these pressures are, especially when they reach certain levels, clearly detrimental to the development of some kind of a new, sustainable, rural economy. From the point of view of the producers of RGS, urban pressure can especially put strain on traditional rural industries such as agriculture; it can also weaken RGS production through a wealth of other employment opportunities. However, new RGS and new RGS producers may also clearly get a niche through moderate urban pressure. The basic idea in the paper is to present some alternative or complementary ideas about rural development, new rural activities and rural actors based on existing discourses and to relate these ideas or propositions to the material on producers of RGS gathered and analysed in the RURBAN project (Andersson, 2005). We will first and foremost look upon the discourses from the point of view of

Table 1. The regions in the RURBAN project Country

Metropolitan study area

Tourist study area

Finland France Hungary The Netherlands Spain

Helsinki region Vexin Français Budapest agglomeration Oost Zuid-Holland Camp de Turia

˚ boland region A Pays de Caux Valley of Arts AND Lake Balaton Zeeuwse Eilanden Marina Alta


Producers of new rural goods and services in rural areas 31 producers of RGS but also treat them in a more general way, that is, see what kind of basic ‘logic’ and ‘frame’ for RGS they indicate. RURBAN provides a rich source of information regarding RGS: 15 lengthy interviews with producers and 5 with experts in each of the regions involved (a total of 200 interviews) were conducted. The interviews dealt with questions such as the profile of the producer unit, local resources used, consumers and the market, infrastructure and networks, support systems and innovational spirit and future expectations. In addition to the interviews, a wide range of documentary and statistical material was used. The regional case studies have been summarized in national reports (Andersson et al., 2004; Buciega et al., 2004; Csurgo et al., 2004; Gana et al., 2004; Overbeek & Vader, 2004) and a comparative analysis (Andersson, 2005). Empirically, this paper draws upon these reports. The paper is organized in the following way. First, an overview of some recent discourses on rural development will be done; after that, some of the basic ideas in these discourses will be summarized in the form of research propositions. Second, some basic background factors affecting production of RGS in the regions will be discussed. Third, the propositions formulated upon the research discourses will be related to the material; also the question of urban pressure and its effects will be discussed. Fourth, the regions will be compared and the basic findings summarized and discussed. Finally, some further implications of the study will be contemplated. The regions will be compared with each other only at a superficial level, since the metropolitan and tourist regions intentionally represent very different types of regions and since national differences also make cross-national comparisons difficult. For more details, see Andersson (2005).

Recent Theoretical Traditions Multifunctional Agriculture Modern, conventional, agriculture has hardly had many friends within critical social science since the late 1960s. In the 1970s, several authors with a Marxist affiliation critically looked at agriculture and the ‘agri-industrial complex’ from a largely theoretical, political economy, perspective (Rannikko, 1989). Later on, when in the 1980s there was disappointment with Marxism, the rise of postmodernism, etc., was in rural research paralleled by an interest in locality studies and the mix of forces determining development at the local level (Urry, 1984). At this juncture, the concept of agricultural pluriactivity also came to the fore (Ika¨heimo & Granberg, 1981; Marsden, 1990). Somewhat later, the traditionlabelled rural development gained strength. The central thesis in this tradition is that modern agriculture has performed ‘a race to the bottom’ (Marsden, 2003) and that it ‘has reached its intellectual and practical limits’ (Van der Ploeg et al., 2002, p. 8). Instead, agriculture must reintegrate itself into the natural and social systems of the countryside by cooperating with other actors, changing emphasis in production from raw material to value-added products, adopting a strategy of pluriactivity instead of narrow specialization, etc. (Andersson et al., 2003, p. 13). In recent years, multifunctionality has become a central concept in these endeavours. Van der Ploeg and Roep (2003) try to develop the multifunctionality concept from a theoretical point view. They start with the depiction of the farm as a


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three-dimensional enterprise that, firstly, has to do with the agro-food supply chain, secondly, with the rural areas and, thirdly, with mobilization of resources. Multifunctional agriculture may, according to Van der Ploeg and Roep, be understood as an expansion of these three dimensions (Figure 1). The conventional agro-food supply chain is deepened into organic farming, high-quality production and regional products and short supply chains. The conventional relation with the rural areas is broadened into agri-tourism, new on-farm activities, diversification and nature and landscape management. Regarding the conventional mobilization of resources, lastly, it is regrounded by new forms of cost reduction and off-farm income. Marsden and Sonnino (2005) take a societal view on farming and suggest three interpretations of multifunctionality: (1) pluriactivity related to conventional agriculture, (2) spatial regulation of the ‘consumption countryside’ and (3) multifunctional agriculture as part of sustainable rural development. In the first case, which illuminates the differences between the novel multifunctionality concepts and pluriactivity, multifunctionality is simply a combination of (conventional) agriculture with other activities at the farm level. In the second case, multifunctionality implies different functions of agriculture vis-a`-vis rural land in order to satisfy the different demands of the late modern consumers of RGS (protected areas, scenery, traditional landscapes and so on). Finally, in the third case, multifunctionality is seen as a central mechanism in the new countryside that tries to find a new balance between agricultural production, nature and the rural society and in the context of which agriculture must still play a principal role. Regardless of what the concept of multifunctional agriculture is, it seems to mean, and opens the way for, new RGS in a number of ways. However, a crucial matter is to what extent multifunctional agriculture is a reality in different

Figure 1. The structure of rural development at the farm enterprise level. Source: Van der Ploeg and Roep (2003, p. 45).


Producers of new rural goods and services in rural areas 33 rural areas. Van der Ploeg and Roep (2003) stress that multifunctionality according to their definition is a salient feature of current agriculture across Europe and that this especially pertains to professional farmers in tune with the development in the field. However, France, the stronghold of EU’s CAP policy does not seem to be among the countries moving fast in this respect and in some important investigations France is missing altogether (Oostindie & Parrott, 2001). Nilsson (2002) also concludes regarding farm tourism, which should be an important facet of multifunctionality, that ‘records from different countries show poor turnover and negligible revenue’ (Nilsson, 2002, p. 21). Furthermore, it has also been claimed that modern, conventional, agriculture may be more innovative than usually thought and that departure from the narrow modernization path therefore may require a real restructuring of the industry as it is known today (Andersson et al., 2003). Considering this, it seems to be of uttermost importance to study multifunctional agriculture in as many settings as possible, especially to see how different contexts interplay with and form multifunctionality and take account of its different dimensions. Also the relations between modern conventional agriculture and multifunctional agriculture should in the same way be studied. The Consumption Countryside The ‘consumption countryside’ forms another angle from which the question of new RGS may be scrutinized. This concept clearly has two roots: on the one hand, the general theorizing about the leisure and consumption society which started already in the 1970s (MacCannell, 1976) and which since then has multiplied in a number of discourses and research tradition, not the least on tourism (Urry, 1989), but of course also on postmodernism and consumerism in general (Falk & Campbell, 1997). On the other hand, the consumer countryside thinking also draws heavily on the post-productivist paradigm in rural research that approaches the matter from the assumption discussed above and, in fact, that agriculture is undergoing a deep change and will lose much of its former role in the countryside (Marsden, 1995). Part of the consumer countryside tradition, in a broad sense, is the discussion of the counter-urbanization phenomenon (Mitchell, 2004) and the analysis of what the radically increased mobility in the late modern society means for the countryside and the concept of ‘rural’ (Cloke & Thrift, 1990; Mormont, 1990). Fundamentally, the tradition assumes that the rural landscape, its culture and traditions, etc., have become goods that are demanded by late modern consumers and that this may form the logic of rural development in the future (Garrod et al., 2006; Marsden & Sonnino, 2005; Nilsson, 2002; Oliver & Jenkins, 2003; Ray, 2000). This sort of thinking is not confined to rural development but has been one of the main facets in contemporary urban theory (Nylund, 2001). One of the cornerstones behind this emphasis on culture in economic and structural analysis is the assumption that ‘commodification’ of culture is needed in order to increase turnover time of capital in post-Fordist economies (Harvey, 1989). With the consumer countryside thinking, production of new RGS becomes central to the countryside and its development. This implies, among other things, that RGS production is a normal economic activity that is handled by ordinary actors in the economic field: entrepreneurs, employees, different service providers, etc. However, part of the countryside is not a ‘normal’ business environment due to lack of infrastructure, lack of skilled people and lack of


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resources generally. In addition, private RGS needs a backup of public goods and services such as nature parks, common resources, transport infrastructure, etc. as well, as these are also organized directly as public RGS (Overbeek & Terluin, 2006). Thus, new economic activities in rural areas have been supported, or what we should like to call ‘orchestrated’, during a long period, first and foremost by the EU’s structural policy and funds but also by national equivalents and other funds and measurers. These measures range from stimulation of entrepreneurship and innovation to cooperation, marketing and ‘image making’ (Garrod et al., 2006; Oliver & Jenkins, 2003). Important objectives are also, of course, to integrate rural development and make it sustainable (Bristow et al., 2001). Furthermore, the public sector may take a direct entrepreneurial role. To understand the prerequisites for new RGS, the ‘normal market’ in the consumption countryside has to be scrutinized: who are the producers, how do they respond to various types of demand and how do they relate to various local contexts? Also the ‘orchestrated market’ has to be taken into consideration: where will we find it, which types of demand does it address and what kind of producers does it promote? A special question is whether the consumption countryside ‘fills the gap’ left by agriculture and other restructured primary industries. Another issue of importance is innovation and entrepreneurial spirit: are they central to the consumption countryside and how are they boosted by the orchestration efforts? Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development Environmental protection and the policies and programmes associated with it have a bearing on rural development and production of RGS in a number of ways. Basically, there has been a sort of anti-thesis between ‘economy’ and ‘ecology’ which has been especially pertinent to the rural areas. The dependence on the forest industry has caused conflicts between developers and conservationists in the Nordic countries, and the same has been the case with hydroelectric power (Massa, 1994). In the international setting, numerous environmental projects have failed because of ignorance of local needs and efforts (Brechin et al., 2002). However, policies and programmes have more and more come to reconcile protection and development, and at the same time, there is also a growing understanding of the logic behind sustainable rural development. Thus, Garrod et al. (2006) introduce the concept of ‘countryside capital’ to illustrate the prerequisites for sustainable development in rural areas. Countryside capital is, on the one hand, traditional rural and natural resources such as the landscape, water, forests, buildings, roads, etc., but, on the other hand, it is also immaterial resources such as local customs, languages and festivals. The basic thinking is that the economy nowadays to a considerable extent is a ‘cultural’ one, as discussed above; on the other hand, the authors refer to the postulate in ecological economics that human well-being in the long run requires the careful and balanced use of natural, manufactured and social resources in the short run (Prugh et al., 1995). First, environmental protection and sustainable development requirements set limits to production and therefore channel production to some extent to certain niches and fields; an example here is (more) organic farming in order to diminish nutrient leaks, but environmental certification of forest products also represents this kind of process (Gallastegui, 2002). Second, there seems today to be more and more scope for a broad integration of environmental protection and


Producers of new rural goods and services in rural areas 35 economic activity. The programmes (in a broad sense) for sustainable development and ecological modernization support this and the same is true for the increased amalgamation of the market and environmental protection (Mol & Sonnenfeld, 2000). A special driver leading to a mix of nature protection with economic and human activity is the insight that nature protection without social and political support will fail (Brechin et al., 2002). Another factor that in the long run may have some effects is the observation that human activity in certain environmental situations increases biodiversity (Jokinen, 2002). Third, environmental protection and sustainable development may become a trump card on the market with a growing environmental conscience and ethic. This may pertain to certification and eco-labelling, although their potential still is rather untapped in this respect, and it is to a great extent already the case in the ‘selling’ of rural and natural areas in the way Garrod et al. (2006) perceive the matter. It is not an easy task to connect the above ‘environmental drivers’ to a specific group, or specific groups of producers. Basically, they affect everyone even if the first set of environmental influences especially concerns farmers and similar primary producers. However, if the reasoning is stretched a bit, there is today in many rural areas an influx of ‘lifestyle refugees’, people who may indeed settle down in rural areas in the counter-urbanization manner and earn their living via commuting or distance work, but who also are to a large extent ‘subcommercial farmers’ or other types of rural producers (Hollier et al., 2003; Judson et al. 1999). There are clear connections between these people and environmental interventions and ethics, and these people may therefore form an interesting bridge between various environmental drivers and RGS production, both as consumers and producers (Groier, 1999). Several authors (Terluin, 2001; Van der Ploeg et al., 2002) also conclude that there is a mix of endogenous and exogenous factors that determine rural development and this reasoning may be taken further by embodying these factors in certain types of people such as newcomers with an urban origin. However, green producers (in the sense of people driven by ethical reasons), along with commercial ones, may of course be of any origin. Following the discussion above, three main propositions regarding new RGS can be made: (1) Multifunctional agriculture may be seen as a core in the development of new RGS, especially since it affects three spheres: the agro-food supply chain, the rural area and the mobilization of rural resources. (2) The consumption countryside thesis is essential for new RGS and we can expect a ‘normal market’ of RGS to appear in most rural settings. However, there is also an orchestration of such a market and this must be scrutinized in different settings. (3) Environmental protection and the integration of protection and economic activity are also important for RGS production. The importance may range from ‘channelling restrictions’ to excellent market value. A special factor here is also the existence of green inhabitants in rural areas who take part in production, marketing and consumption of RGS.

Important Background Factors in the Studied Regions In the RURBAN project, we have been looking at three background factors that we regard as important for production of RGS: agriculture, nature protection and the

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real estate market/housing. These factors are important in a general sense and should therefore be known prior to a detailed analysis of RGS production in the regions. However, these factors may also have a specific influence upon RGS production, depending on the region: they vary to a considerable extent both nationally and regionally, they interact in different ways with each other as well as with other regional and local factors, etc. A fourth factor would, of course, be policies and programmes stimulating or regulating RGS production. However, these programmes are multifarious, despite the common EU frame, and would have required an extensive research project of their own to be investigated.


Agriculture Regarding agriculture, the French and the Dutch regions are the farming regions in the RURBAN study. Especially in the two French regions, modern, mainstream agriculture is totally dominant in terms of land use and has also a profound societal influence. In the geographically small Dutch regions, agriculture also has a strong position, but it is here first and foremost in terms of land use and not so much economic importance or societal influence. Above all, agriculture has in the Netherlands a stewardship role vis-a`-vis land use and land use control, not the least in relation to the complicated water regulation system. The Spanish regions are in a peculiar in-between position regarding agriculture: on the one hand, the industry is important and is also undergoing a transformation from traditional ‘dry’ crops to irrigated ones such as citrus fruits, especially in Camp de Turia. There is also a willingness to listen to new ‘late modern’ demands in the sector. On the other hand, the atmosphere among the farmers is generally pessimistic: in Marina Alta traditional production is threatened while second homes take over more and more of the land in the mountainous landscape; in the same manner, urbanization threatens agriculture and agricultural land in Camp de Turia. In the Helsinki region, grain is cultivated on highly mechanized farms but the yield is not especially high, due to the cold climate, and the industry is dependent ˚ boland region, on subsidies and its regional economic impact is low. In the A which to a large part is an archipelago, the position of mainstream agriculture is even weaker, but pluriactivity and multifunctionality makes it a more significant societal player here. In the Hungarian areas, lastly, the current position of agriculture is weak, to some extent due to the economic and political transformation of the society and to some extent to the character and geographic position of the regions. However, there is, for example, a willingness to adapt agriculture to new, ‘late modern’, consumer demands. Nature Protection Nature protection (national parks, nature parks or more specific protection measurers) follows to some extent the pattern of agriculture. It is strong in the Dutch regions with national landscapes in both areas and in addition a national park in the tourist region, plus a considerable set of other nature protection measures and regulations. In the French metropolitan area, Vexin Français, the regional nature park, PNR, strongly regulates nature and landscape use, and also in the tourist area, Pays de Caux, there are a considerable number of regulatory mechanisms in place, for example, a ‘Conservatorie du Littoral’ scheme,

Producers of new rural goods and services in rural areas 37 which intervenes in the land market along the coast. In Finland, there are national parks in both regions, but otherwise land-use policy in Finland is rather liberal since all land not explicitly protected may be used for housing. In Spain, there is a natural park in the metropolitan area Camp de Turia, Sierra Calderona, but it has hitherto been controversial—local residents demand some sort of development in the area and soft development is also on the park’s agenda but it has hitherto lacked resources to back up such a development. In Marina Alta, nature protection has low saliency and the same may be said about the Budapest agglomeration in Hungary, despite a national park close to the area. In Lake Balaton, there is a certain discourse on nature protection or soft development, although major programmes are lacking.


The Real Estate Market Regarding the real estate market and housing, two different factors are important: land-use rules and demand. There may be a lack of demand, in which case no market will develop; there may be a demand but also rules that prohibit development and the end result will be the same; lastly, there may be both demand and rules allowing development, which means that a real estate and housing market will develop. The last conditions are fulfilled in the metropolitan regions in Finland, Hungary and Spain where there is a strong counter, peri and suburbanization, despite somewhat different background forces. The condition ‘demand but prohibiting rules’ is present in the Dutch metropolitan area, Oost Zuid-Holland, while the French metropolitan region Vexin Français represent an interesting mixed case in the sense that there is a strong colony of former exurbanites in the area but that they today, together with the farmers, control the development and set restricting rules for the real estate and housing market through the regional nature park, PNR. Considering the tourist regions, there is a lively second home market in the Spanish Marina Alta area, first and foremost due to foreign demand. There is a similar market in the Lake Balaton region, although more restricted while the ˚ boland is almost completely second home market in the Finnish tourist area A domestic. This market has been very liberal but the current trend is that it is becoming more regulated, primarily due to new shore protection schemes, which have proved to be rather effective. There are second home markets also in the French and Dutch tourist regions but they are considerably more restricted than in the other countries. Producers of RGS Regions and Producers ˚ boland, small producers form the overwhelming In the Finnish tourist area, A majority and they may also be said to provide the bulk of the RGS in the region. They are to a considerable extent small farmers (or formerly such), which means that the propositions related to the multifunctionality tradition at least to some degree pertain to this region. However, farming may form only a small part of the total set of activities for many of these producers, and it may only be a formal designation. The other small producers have a mixed background: workers, civil servants and entrepreneurs, and some of them have also


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moved into the region from other parts of the country. This indicates, together with a few larger tourist firms, a general market, or market niche, for RGS and is thus in accordance with the consumption countryside thinking. Also the hypothesis of ‘green’ entrepreneurs get some support since many of the newcomers are people who have chosen the archipelago as their residence and workplace, in their search for an alternative lifestyle. In the Finnish metropolitan area, Helsinki region, the economically most important RGS producers are establishments above the ‘small’ category: golf courses, winter sport centres, horse stables, etc. The household or micro-firms, for their part, run businesses such as farm shops, restaurants, wine cellars or animal husbandry for spectators while various quasi-governmental institutions handle outdoor recreation facilities and areas. There are some farmers within the group of small RGS producers, but they are far from dominant; quite the contrary, multifunctional farming does not seem to be appreciated among the professional farmers in the region. Instead the mix of the RGS producers indicates the general consumption countryside trajectory in which the market develops through the interplay between late modern consumers and a diverse group of producers. Also the green entrepreneur hypothesis gains some support since many of the RGS producers are idealists who like to work in the rural areas, close to nature. In the Helsinki region, the enormous supply of alternative employment opportunities clearly hampers the growth of the RGS sector. Otherwise, the moderate urban pressure in Finland stimulates a diverse RGS supply, at the same time as it hardly affects the possibilities for agriculture except in the most urbanized areas. In the French tourist area, Pays de Caux, the RGS providers can be divided into two main groups. On the one hand, there are farmers who diversify into new alternative products and sell their produce directly to consumers or who start new complementary activities such as lodging. On the other hand, there are also other entrepreneurs who run shops, restaurants and hotels or who use the landscape for various recreational activities. The mix of these RGS providers gives support to two of the propositions listed in the beginning of this paper: the multifunctional agriculture thesis and the green entrepreneur conjecture. The farmers engaged in the RGS business are a self-evident testimony, while many of the other RGS producers are ‘neorurals’ that have moved into the area for personal and idealistic reasons. In the French metropolitan area, Vexin Français, the RGS producers may likewise be divided into two main groups: large ones that operate in the sector of real estate, housing and maintenance and small ones found in fields such as lodging and restaurants, direct sales and ‘event production’. It is somewhat difficult to relate this region to the questions posed in this paper because of the ‘contained’ character of the RGS market, within the context of the regional park PNR. On the one hand, the structure of the core RGS market, dominated by small providers, resembles the one in the tourist area Pays de Caux with families or micro-firms working close to agriculture and also some alternative lifestyle-related ‘eventproduction’, etc. On the other hand, modern, conventional, agriculture is still very strong in this area. The businesses related to the housing sector in the region indicate that the tendency towards the ‘consumption countryside’ would be strong, if market forces could play freely. Urban pressure in Vexin Français works first and foremost by the response it has evoked, PNR. Through this construction, newcomers who would have an


Producers of new rural goods and services in rural areas 39 interest in RGS production have especially great difficulties entering the field. Uncontained, urban pressure would probably result in an expanding and multifarious RGS market. In Pays de Caux, urban pressure seems to be a more peripheral issue, due to its distance to larger cities and strong agriculture. In the Hungarian tourist area of Lake Balaton, the RGS providers have been divided in the RURBAN project into three groups: those running traditional tourist business, those developing new products based on the traditional assets and those developing completely new activities. Due to the character of this region with an old tourist industry and a weak agriculture (a character that, furthermore, is formed by the country’s political and economic history), multifunctional agriculture plays a minor role, if any, in the development of a new RGS economy. Instead, the sector is here ‘normal business’ with a combination of entrepreneurs and employees rooted in the old tourist sector along with others joining from a different set of backgrounds and employment sectors. However, also in Hungary, there are people seeking an alternative lifestyle who settle down in the countryside and start new activities. The Hungarian metropolitan area, the Budapest agglomeration, is also a difficult case from the point of view of new RGS. The peri-urbanization process is so strong here that real estate and housing totally dominate the RGS market. Thus, the producers of these ‘RGS’ are the normal ones in such circumstances, and the consumption countryside hypothesis gets a very rude form of support. However, there are also traces of an RGS economy in the narrow sense of the word, for example, wine production and new types of cultural events, and these seem to give weak support to both the consumption countryside and the green entrepreneur hypothesis. The wine producers simply seem to ‘sense the market’ while feasts and events are arranged by people with an urban origin, more out of personal interest than with the purpose of doing business. The urban pressure in the Budapest agglomeration is mostly described in harsh terms: an unbridled real estate market throws itself over the whole area and tends to make other activities and processes more or less subordinate. This is hardly a good starting point for development of new RGS, although a ‘mature’ market later may support such development. In the Lake Balaton region, urban pressure is less significant, although, for example, foreigners are important actors in the second home market. In the Dutch tourist area, Zeeuwse Eilanden, the RGS sector is, as mentioned, dominated by the farmers, first and foremost because of strict land-use control. The farmers engage, in addition to their core business, in agri-tourism, social care, nature conservation, direct sales, etc. In addition to the farmers, small firms, associations and craftsmen provide products that can be regarded as RGS: accommodations, museums and clogs to mention a few. This market constellation first and foremost matches the visions of a strong agriculture central to the countryside and its development. Other activities outside towns and villages are allowed only as long as they do not interfere with agriculture, except for along the seashore where there are several tourist firms. This clearly shows that specific national factors to a large extent determine the development paths in the countryside; general market or regulatory tendencies at the European or global level can only have some influence on the orientations for development. In the metropolitan area, Oost Zuid-Holland, the situation resembles to a large extent the one in the tourist area; the main difference here is that nature conservation is the most common extra activity among the farmers while in the tourist


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area they tend to lean more towards agri-tourism. In some cases, farmers that began with nature conservation and from this starting point proceeded to more extensive diversification quit farming altogether and become producers exclusively of new RGS. This, of course, seems to back up the general consumption countryside proposition, while nature conservation points to a direct link between environmental protection and RGS. Urban pressure is strong in the Netherlands, and especially in Oost Zuid-Holland. At the same time, this pressure is ‘contained’ primarily by the strong regulations of agriculture and land use, which makes it very difficult for people from outside to enter the area and the RGS business. In this sense, the Netherlands has similarities with the French metropolitan area, although the origin of the ‘pressure containment’ is different. There also seems to be a good potential for RGS development from within the farming sector in Netherlands. In the Spanish tourist area, Marina Alta, the strong dominance of second homes and the concomitant real estate and construction business ‘distorts’ the picture of the RGS market in much the same way as in the Budapest agglomeration. However, here the farmers are also involved in the RGS sector— for example, through wine production and organic farming—and there are also different kinds of small RGS producers forming a category of their own: restaurants, shops, rural tourist operators, etc. This is in line with both the multifunctional agriculture and the consumption countryside thinking. Also the hypothesis of green entrepreneurs having an influence on rural development gets some support since some of the small entrepreneurs have exactly this characteristic (neo-rurals with an urban background, proponents of alternative lifestyles, etc.). In Camp de Turia near Valencia, lastly, the real estate and housing business is also strong, with ‘normal actors’ involved and thus giving an excellent picture of the ‘consumption countryside’ rapidly consumed and thereby also lost. However, agriculture is also a player to count on here; organic farming is developing and the important agricultural cooperatives also see other possibilities to bring the industry more in tune with ‘late modern’ consumers and their demands. An ‘independent’ RGS sector is emerging as well, with restaurants, shops and rural tourism packages as some of the items. A new field of activity is offering housekeeping and garden services to the new inhabitants in the area, who are mostly commuters. The activities on behalf of the agricultural sector give some support to the multifunctionality thinking, although the peri-urban character of the area sets limits to this kind of reasoning. Urban pressure is strong in both of the Spanish regions, although the causes are somewhat different (foreign demand for second homes in Marina Alta and domestic pressure in Camp de Turia). There may be a market for new types of RGS and new RGS producers in both regions; also the agricultural sector may have some new prospects, although the signals here are ambiguous. There are hints that new employment opportunities reduce the interest in RGS production in the Spanish regions. Comparing the Regions: The Scope of the Results All three lines of reasoning, or propositions, earlier in this paper have a bearing in most of the regions. This is hardly surprising, given the entrenched position of the discourses reviewed. What the study corroborates is thus that rural development


Producers of new rural goods and services in rural areas 41 is a very complicated process that must be looked upon from different angles and that different discourses and traditions must be seen as complementary rather than competitive. At the same time, the results are rather general and attempts to compare the regions in more detail from the point of view of the three propositions seems like an over-elaboration of the case. Another result from the study is that the national context is decisive for the way general developmental tendencies play out in different regional and local settings: a situation such as the Dutch one strongly promotes agriculture’s influence in rural development—be it multifunctional or not—while the Hungarian and Finnish situations seemingly do not. Urban pressure has a special intermediary role in this respect: in the Netherlands and the French metropolitan area, agriculture is the main bulwark against urban pressure and accordingly it also gets a big role in the development of RGS. In other regions, for example, the Spanish regions and the Hungarian metropolitan region, agriculture makes a more or less unconditional surrender to urban pressure and the RGS field is instead colonized by a wide range of other actors. These actors balance, in several regions, on the thin egde between stimulated demand and the bulldozers of the construction industry but generally a modest urban pressure seems to stimulate RGS production. Another message from the study, admittedly weak, is that modern, conventional, agriculture in some circumstances may retard or even hinder development of new RGS; the French and Finnish metropolitan areas indicate this. What we call ‘orchestration’ of new RGS is found in the Finnish tourist area (primarily through EU programmes and funds). Also in the French metropolitan area, the regional nature park PNR promotes RGS deliberately, although it is channelled to specific sectors due to the park’s ‘restricting agenda’ for the area—development should be carefully balanced. In the French tourist area, there are good support schemes for RGS coupled to the farming sector but insufficient ones for other RGS, which perhaps may be attributed to agricultures strong position in France. In the Hungarian tourist area, orchestration efforts are heavily concentrated on the tourist sector while other sectors are left behind. The environmental protection or sustainable development ‘factor’ is not easy to conceptualize in terms of producers but the results on the case studies indicate that we have to count with ‘entrepreneurs in sustainable development’ even though they may range from specialized eco-producers to the exurbanites who are primarily seeking a new lifestyle. Regarding other linkages between RGS and environmental protection and sustainable development, it must, however, be pointed out that few of the respondents in the RURBAN study mentioned eco-labelling or certification in relation to RGS. Neither was RGS coupled to national parks and the like—except for the French regional nature park PNR which is more of a general territorial regulatory body. This may, on the one hand, indicate that integration of nature protection and economic activity at the regional level is still mostly a theoretical construct, a distant vision, rather then reality. On the other hand, here we probably also have issues to do with national parks’, or similar protected areas’, character as public goods, which are difficult to integrate into the market or different kinds of compensation systems. It may be the case here for new institutional constructs, both in relation to the market and with regard to organized compensatory systems. The linkages between RGS and environmental protection are most clear in the case of environmental schemes within agriculture, which of course is also an important part of multifunctional agriculture.

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Future Tasks The task in this paper is not to challenge the multiplicity of discourses regarding rural development. Already Niels Bohr showed with his complementarity theory in physics that different approaches to the same phenomenon may be inevitable since equally ‘true’ theories may turn out to be incommensurable. However, theorizing about the ‘late modern’ countryside is still a fairly young endeavour and we will probably in the future see several attempts to integrate the theories and hypotheses currently available. An integral part of this task will be to corroborate the propositions against empirical evidence as we have tried to do with the current state of theorizing.


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