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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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you read about a place and then visit it, the reality is not always what you expect. However, with Jorwert, in the Friesland province of the Netherlands, and the subject of Geert Mak’s “An Island in Time: The Biography of a Village”, the reality was rather unsurprising.  Having travelled across a lot of the Netherlands, the view at the entrance to the village is much like many others.  The photo is taken from the village’s only bus stop, where the timetable showed 3 buses each way per day.  The Baarderadeel Arms has survived, the School appeared to have 19 pupils based on the images on the windows and the Church was hosting a musical group.

The playing field was being maintained by a robotic lawn mower (above!), just one more indication that people’s labour was no longer at the heart of this community. This is not to say that there is no community, but the community is based around social and cultural factors and no longer inextricably connected to economic necessity.

For those who cherish notions of “rural idyll”, this might be a sad loss. But the reality for the people of Jorwert is that they have the opportunity to express a range of consumer choices, they can travel to the nearby city of Leeuwarden in 20 minutes and be in Amsterdam in just over 2 hours.  The decline of traditional rural services reflects modern consumer preferences and coincides with a higher disposable incomes for the majority.  The question for rural researchers and policy-makers is how to sustain villages like Jorwert as mixed communities that can provide an affordable, good quality of life to those with lower incomes, to both older and younger people and to those working in different types of employment.

As co-convener of a special session on international migration to rural areas at the 27th European Society for Sociology Conference, I want to thank everyone that submitted abstracts.

The range of submissions highlights the breadth of research that is taking place in this field, from economic migrants to refugees and across all parts of the EU and North America.  Moving forwards, the topics raise questions for the need to join up research between regions losing population and those gaining population.  Furthermore, there appear to different approaches towards designing policies that support different categories of migrants and that address social and economic challenges differently.

We look forward to bringing these conversations together in Krakow and further details of our session can be viewed here

 

After a period of inactivity due to the birth of baby Michael (now 3

months old, and learning to sit in his own mini chair!) and my move

to take a new position as Deputy Head of Lincoln’s new School of

Geography, the blog should see a new injection of life.

The Rural Research Group is also relaunching in the School

of Geography and details can be found here:

http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/geography/research/ruralresearchgroup/

 

As politicians and civil servants begin to think about the future outside of the EU, this is an important time to capitalise on the national level of political engagement and encourage new ideas that can push the UK ahead of the rest of Europe. That way we can continue to be influential on a global scale by setting the examples that others will want to follow.

In terms of rural policy, agriculture outside of the CAP will undoubtedly face challenges but equally it can free up entrepreneurial farmers to react to the market rather than to policy changes.  We need the leading agricultural and trade economists to inform policy that gives the agriculture sector fair chances in the global markets but we cannot rely on the same level of expenditure that CAP provided.

In my field of rural development, policies such as LEADER have operated with much smaller budgets but with many procedural limitations.  This provides new opportunities to think about how this money is used to promote business and communities to thrive in our rural areas.  Public investment should focus on innovations of all kinds – and ones that will give new futures to businesses and community organisations.  We cannot afford to prop up failing businesses but we can use a range of initiatives to help ambitious enterprises to innovate – whether that is soft loans to invest in new technology, training programmes and networks to raise the profile and skills levels of rural economies or infrastructure links to provide a more level playing field.

For communities, we must not forget rural poverty and inequalities but we also face new challenges of service provision in an era of austerity and ageing rural populations.  How can businesses capitalise on new opportunities? How can rural places benefit from wider mobility and the connections that people further afield retain to rural places?  Why can’t we have a platform that allows crowd funding of village services to provide a kick-back to investors – whether that’s a free Sunday lunch in the pub or a vote on the type of swing that is bought for the playground?  This feels more democratic that the Parish Council precept model as people could buy into the services and facilities that they care about – and people who don’t live in the village could also participate.

Over the coming months, I look forward to working with a number of colleagues working on rural research from the Universities of Kent, Sussex, Exeter and Warwick to provide the baseline information and to come up with new ideas and approaches as we move into a new era of rural policy for the UK.