Thanks to the Agricultural Economics Society, and particularly Prof. Janet Dwyer, for their kind invitation to present my thoughts on opportunities for Rural Development in the wake of Brexit at their annual conference in Dublin.
The main message is that there are new opportunities for rural development once rural economies are viewed distinct from agriculture and seen as home to enterprising, mobile and diverse communities.
A summary of the ideas from my presentation can be downloaded here: Opportunities for Rural Development
This is a very positive interpretation. Another one might be as follows.
Defra’s 10 point plan for rural productivity takes ‘productivity’ as its ultimate goal for rural areas, which is flawed in a number or respects. The most common governmental measure of productivity is Gross Value Added and this measure leaves out the smallest businesses – a disproportionately large number of which are in rural areas. Measures of rural productivity are therefore inherently flawed.
Also, productivity measured in this way ignores a range of quality of life measures that are strong locational determinants for a lot of rural dwellers. They don’t necessarily want to be ‘GVA productive’ but, rather, ‘content’.
The inequality aspirations won’t all reduce inequalities (broadband could well exacerbate them) and some of these aspirations have been around for a century or more without ever being resolved (transport, for example).
Enterprise and growth measures – until there is a reform to land use planning policies these will not work, and economic growth policies have been shown to exacerbate inequality, be environmentally damaging and not lead to increases in marginal utility.
‘Devolution of Power’ has very different meanings depending on whether you see it as Dryzeck’s deliberative democracy, Habermas’s responsible participation or Lemke’s neo-liberalism, amongst others – or a combination. Are we giving people opportunities or obligations? Are we empowering rural communities or cutting them adrift? Are we leaving the rural citizenry to the mercy of the powerful few – used to called feudalism!
So, there are various interpretations of both policy motivations and possible outcomes!