The spatiality of multifunctional agriculture: a human geography perspective.

Abstract Based on reconceptualisations of multifunctional agriculture as a normative spectrum of decision-making (strong to weak multifunctionality) bounded by productivist and non-productivist action and thought [Hollander, G.M., 2004. Agricultural trade liberalization, multifunctionality, and sugar in the south Florida landscape. Geoforum 35, 299–312; Holmes, J., 2006. Impulses towards a multifunctional transition in rural Australia: gaps in the research agenda. Journal of Rural Studies 22, 142–160; Wilson, G.A., 2007. Multifunctional Agriculture: A Transition Theory Perspective. CAB International, Wallingford], this paper argues that there is currently insufficient research into the geography of multifunctionality. Building on current human geography debates about issues of scale, the paper suggests that we should conceive of multifunctionality as a spatially complex nested hierarchy comprising different interlinked ’layers’ of multifunctional decision-making ranging from the farm level to the national and global levels. It suggests that the notion of multifunctional agriculture only makes sense if it is applied at the farm level as the most important spatial scale for the implementation of multifunctional action ‘on the ground’. Multifunctionality can be interpreted as having ’direct’ expression only at the ’lower’ geographical scales (i.e. farm, community and regional levels in particular) while the regional, national and global levels show ’indirect’ expressions of multifunctionality that are mediated by local level actors in order to find tangible expression on the ground. The notion of global-level multifunctionality is the most challenging, as this level lacks political and ideological coherence about the required directions necessary for implementation of strong multifunctionality pathways. The paper concludes by arguing that much work still awaits those investigating the spatiality of multifunctionality, in particular with regard to the question whether global-level strong multifunctionality is possible, or whether strong multifunctionality in one territory is predicated on weak multifunctionality in others.

[1]  Akhil Gupta,et al.  Culture, Power, Place: Ethnography at the End of an Era , 1997 .

[2]  G. Wilson.  From ‘weak’ to ‘strong’ multifunctionality: Conceptualising farm-level multifunctional transitional pathways , 2008 .

[3]  S. Whatmore.  Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World in the Late 20th Century , 1995 .

[4]  Akhil Gupta,et al.  Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology , 1997 .

[5]  Clive Potter,et al.  Agricultural multifunctionality in the WTO—legitimate non-trade concern or disguised protectionism? , 2002 .

[6]  Geoff A. Wilson,et al.  The Australian Landcare movement: towards ‘post-productivist’ rural governance? , 2004 .

[7]  Terry Marsden,et al.  The condition of rural sustainability , 2003 .

[8]  Terry Marsden,et al.  The Social Management of Rural Nature: Understanding Agrarian-Based Rural Development , 2002 .

[9]  J. Rigg,et al.  ‘Post-productivist’ agricultural regimes and the South: discordant concepts? , 2003 .

[10]  Gianluca Brunori,et al.  Multifunctionality and rural development: a multilevel approach. , 2003 .

[11]  P. Mcmichael,et al.  The Global Restructuring of Agro-food Systems , 1994 .

[12]  S. Whatmore,et al.  Technological Change and the Rural Environment , 2023 .

[13]  H. Renting,et al.  Methodological and Conceptual Issues in the Study of Multifunctionality and Rural Development , 2000 .

[14]  M. Winter.  Geographies of food: agro-food geographies - food, nature, farmers and agency , 2005 .

[15]  Geoff A. Wilson,et al.  Multifunctional Agriculture: A Transition Theory Perspective , 2007 .

[16]  E. Swyngedouw.  Scaled Geographies. Nature, Place, and the Politics of Scale , 2008 .

[17]  G. Hollander.  Agricultural trade liberalization, multifunctionality, and sugar in the south Florida landscape , 2004 .

[18]  E. Sheppard,et al.  The spatialities of contentious politics , 2008 .

[19]  J. M. Peterson,et al.  Environmental policies for a multifunctional agricultural sector in open economies , 2002 .

[20]  S. Marston,et al.  Human geography without scale , 2005 .

[21]  G. Wilson,et al.  Farmer participation in agri-environmental schemes : Towards conservation-oriented thinking? , 2001 .

[22]  Jules Pretty,et al.  Regenerating Agriculture: Policies and Practice for Sustainability and Self-Reliance , 1995 .

[23]  B. Losch.  Debating the multifunctionality of agriculture : from trade negotiations to development policies by the south , 2004 .

[24]  Floor Brouwer,et al.  Sustaining Agriculture and the Rural Environment; governance, policy and multifunctionality , 2004 .

[25]  J. Holmes,et al.  Impulses towards a Multifunctional Transition in Rural Australia: Gaps in the Research Agenda. , 2006 .

[26]  C. Cocklin,et al.  From market to multifunctionality? Land stewardship in Australia , 2006 .

[27]  Nigel Thrift,et al.  The Place of Complexity , 1999 .

[28]  David O'Sullivan.  Complexity science and human geography , 2004 .

[29]  Geoff A. Wilson,et al.  Agri-environmental policy in the European Union. , 2000 .

[30]  P. A. Memon,et al.  Indigenous Forest Management in 21st-Century New Zealand: Towards a ‘Postproductivist’ Indigenous Forest–Farmland Interface? , 2005 .

[31]  K. Hoggart,et al.  What rural restructuring , 2001 .

[32]  The Institutional Limits to Multifunctional Agriculture: Subnational Governance and Regional Systems of Innovation , 2006 .

[33]  J. Agnew,et al.  Agnew, J.A. 1987: Place and Politics: the geographical mediation of state and society , 2003 .

[34]  R. Munton,et al.  The Rural Restructuring Process: Emerging Divisions of Agricultural Property Rights , 1990 .

[35]  Kevin Morgan,et al.  Sustainable agriculture, food supply chains and regional development: Editorial introduction , 1999 .

[36]  Dirk Roep,et al.  Multifunctionality and rural development: the actual situation in Europe , 2003 .

[37]  C. Potter.  Against the grain: agri-environmental reform in the United States and the European Union. , 1998 .

[38]  N. Ward,et al.  The Differentiated Countryside , 2003 .

[39]  Geoff A. Wilson,et al.  Injecting social psychology theory into conceptualisations of agricultural agency: Towards a post-productivist farmer self-identity? , 2006 .

[40]  N. Ward,et al.  Rural and Regional Development: The Role of the Regional Development Agencies in England , 2003 .

[41]  J. Holmes.  Diversity and change in Australia’s rangelands: a post–productivist transition with a difference? , 2002 .

[42]  C. Potter,et al.  Agricultural policy discourses in the European post-Fordist transition: neoliberalism, neomercantilism and multifunctionality , 2005 .

[43]  Doreen Massey,et al.  Talking of space‐time , 2001 .

[44]  T. Marsden.  Constructing The Countryside , 1993 .

[45]  N. Brenner.  The limits to scale? Methodological reflections on scalar structuration , 2001 .

[46]  D. Goodman.  Rural Europe Redux? Reflections on Alternative Agro‐Food Networks and Paradigm Change , 2004 .

[47]  G. Van Huylenbroeck,et al.  The demand for landscape amenities by rural tourists. , 2003 .

[48]  S. Marston,et al.  Progress or regress? , 2005 .

[49]  J. Mccarthy.  Rural geography: multifunctional rural geographies - reactionary or radical? , 2005 .

[50]  M. Storper.  The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy , 1997 .

[51]  Guido Van Huylenbroeck,et al.  Multifunctional agriculture: a new paradigm for European agriculture and rural development. , 2003 .

[52]  G. Wilson.  Global multifunctional agriculture: transitional convergence between North and South or zero-sum game? , 2008 .

[53]  Terry Marsden,et al.  The Future of Rural Society , 1990 .

[54]  Christopher D. Hale.  Real Reform in North Korea? The Aftermath of the July 2002 Economic Measures , 2005 .

[55]  N. Smith.  Contours of a Spatialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of Geographical Scale , 1992 .

[56]  R. Burton.  Seeing Through the ‘Good Farmer's’ Eyes: Towards Developing an Understanding of the Social Symbolic Value of ‘Productivist’ Behaviour , 2004 .

[57]  G. Huylenbroeck,et al.  Multifunctionality and rural development: a general framework , 2003 .

[58]  Andrew E. G. Jonas.  Pro scale: further reflections on the ‘scale debate’ in human geography , 2006 .

[59]  Kate Jones.  Scale as epistemology , 1998 .

[60]  G. A. Wilson,et al.  Unravelling desertification: policies and actor networks in Southern Europe. , 2005 .

[61]  J. R. Clark.  The ‘New Associationalism’ in agriculture: agro-food diversification and multifunctional production logics , 2005 .