Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Description of the incumbent regimes
The pre-transition period in the three case study areas was characterized by the
interdependency of agri-food regimes and water management. However, the differences
between regimes are manifest mainly in two dimensions: the technological and the
institutional. Thus, while in the German case agriculture is of an extensive nature, typical
for a Less Favoured Area (LFA), and contributing to a rural landscape of high value with
links to tourism and amenity provision, in the other two areas intensive agricultural
practices prevail, exerting pressure on water resources. Furthermore, within the intensive
systems the Greek subsidy-oriented production system may be distinguished from the
French, mainly market-oriented system. Another difference between the German case and
the other two study areas was that a public utility service, Stadtwerke München GmbH
(SWM), established for the management of water resources, played the role of the principal
agent, while no special arrangements for water management existed in the other two.
In the German study region agriculture, seen as a land use regime, faces the challenges
and opportunities of a LFA of considerable scenic beauty, in the vicinity of a metropolitan
urban centre. A special cultural landscape has developed over the centuries as a result of the
topography, the small size of farms, cultivation practices in permanent grassland and dairy
farming. This type of cultural landscape, typical of mountainous LFAs, could be considered
as a sub-regime, as it provides amenities for recreation and tourism. Small farm holdings in
general face increasing economic pressures when structural adjustments in agriculture are
slower in LFAs. These pressures result in high levels of uncertainty amongst farmers about
whether to continue farming. Investing in the farm and intensifying production lies at one
end of the spectrum of potential responses; at the other is abandonment of farming.
However, the existence of successors in the area suggests that organic farming provides a
viable alternative to the dilemma. The requirements regarding animal welfare and feeding
in organic agriculture have been increasingly strict in the past few years and derogations
such as permission to use small amounts of conventional feed if no organic feed was
available, have been gradually phased out. Tie-stalls will be prohibited in Bavaria from
2013. Consequently, a number of small dairy farmers have been obliged to reorganize their
installations for cattle breeding, requiring costly investment. The role of organic advisory
services is relatively prominent in the process of reorganization. A number of organic
farming associations, particularly Naturland consultants, are active in the region. However,
the difference between organic farmers in the Mangfall Valley and the other case study
areas is their spatial concentration and their motivation for adopting organic agriculture.
The initiation point in the Greek study area was the early 1980s when Greece entered
the EEC and a single function regime based on intensive fruit production began. Under the
Common Market Organisation for Fruit and Vegetables, subsidies were given for
withholding large quantities of produce from the market as a means to stabilize prices. The
main aim of farmers and their collective organizations thus became the exploitation of land
in order to produce maximum quantities, and thereby increase the revenue gained through
subsidies. Consequently, quality was not a predominant concern. In terms of the important
technical dimensions of the regime in Imathia, the production process was conventional,
characterized by the production of fresh fruit, almost exclusively peaches, as well as peach
production for canning, which gradually marginalized other crops. For the latter, Greece
held, and still holds, an important segment of the global market. Paradoxically though, links
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