Regional Concentration and Specialisation in Agricultural Activities in EU-9 Regions (1950-2000)

Both traditional (von Thünen) and modern (Hayami & Ruttan, Krugman) theories on land use suggest that productions with a high value added per unit of land tend to be located near urban centres. In this article it is tested to what extent these theoretical findings are confirmed by empirical data on agricultural land use and production for the EU-9. The focus is not only on the degree of concentration and specialisation, but also on their development over time. Growth and decline of agricultural productions are here related to the degree of rurality. It is found that high value productions indeed tend to be located in urban regions. It is also found that most specialisation patterns that already existed in 1950 are even stronger in 2000

Side Activities of Non-Farmers in Rural Areas in the Netherlands

In many rural areas, not only in The Netherlands but also elsewhere in Europe, has been observed a variety of employment opportunities for rural populations, following the decline in traditional agricultural employment. This contributes to the fact that the countryside is changing and rural areas can be viewed as new spaces of work. As a result, rural economy is no longer dominated by agricultural activities, but by activities such as small scale industrial production, service provision, landscape management, and residential use. To a certain extent these activities have the form of side-activities next to primary income sources. Most attention in both scientific literature and policies is focused on side-activities by farmers, such as agro-tourism and direct marketing. However, according to empirical data from The Netherlands, most side-activities are developed by non-farmers. In this paper the focus is on this last group. The amounts and types of non-farmers’ and farmers side-activities will be deployed, together with their motives to start new entrepreneurship endeavors and the impact on the local community. It will be argued that this type of activities will stimulate rural economic development offering new job opportunities for income generation to the rural inhabitants and create new economic spaces in rural geographical contexts transforming the rural economy

Spatial effects on the image and identity of a rural area

AbstractThe Veenkoloniën is a relatively poor region within the peripheral north of the Netherlands. A negative regional image was suggested as one of the causes of this poverty. Our study focuses on what the images of the Veenkoloniën are within the Netherlands, and how the images change according to distance from the region. The data was obtained through a nationwide questionnaire (N = 922). The analysis shows that the valuations ascribed to the Veenkoloniën for living and recreation are lowest in the neighbouring regions, and increase with distance. In addition, the associations with the Veenkoloniën change from regional-specific to general-rural associations as distance increases. Both observations suggest a degree of othering which varies with distance. Othering, defining the self from the other, is generally analogous to defining the good from the bad, which explains the lower valuation given in neighbouring regions

Researching the rural

In this paper we make a plea for increasing the use of mixed method approaches in research projects in rural studies. The paper is an offshoot from a book project, aimed at producing a volume on rural research methods. Rural research is in many ways different from research in more densely populated areas, not only because of the topics (agriculture, nature, remoteness) and the distances, but also because of challenges relating to data collection, ethical issues, and diverse cultural representations of rural places

Exploring rural digital hubs and their possible contribution to communities in Europe

This article offers a conceptualization of rural digital hubs and outlines the variations among them. Using content analysis applied to websites and results from a survey, we draw a clearer picture of rural digital hub designs in the European context and how these relate to their socio-economic context. To explore their possible wider impact on rural communities, we apply the concept of community resilience. The study finds that there are various rural digital hub subtypes targeting businesses, community members, or both. There is a tendency to diversify such places or even to combine several subtypes, and we argue that this is a necessity if the hub providers are to reach the number of users required to generate added value, especially in the rural context. We have also found that rural digital hubs tend to address businesses and that it is expected that these places can to an extent contribute to community resilience. Furthermore, we narrow down the definition of a rural digital hub and suggest to make it place dependent whether and how to implement new ones