Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
solution to the problem of green tides appears to have begun but it is still in its initial stage.
A shift of focus may be detected towards regulating the production process instead of
inputs, now that institutions have been built, groups are engaged and linkages are slowly
being established between them. This fact, and the cultivation of relationships with public
agencies, local authorities and advisory services, has been an uphill struggle but could
create space and allow time for collective learning and the strengthening of relations with
civil society. The tensions however, resulting particularly from the timeline imposed by the
French Government, remain. The result has been a return to decisions taken bilaterally by
farming leaders and policy makers and the exclusion of niche actors and NGOs from the
collective process.
In the Mangfall Valley, a market solution was sought for the resource regime. The right
to pollute, in that case, lay clearly with local farmers, although a shift in that aspect of the
regime can be seen through the gradual acquisition of land by the public authority and re-
lease to farmers. This may explain the reluctance of farmers to accept expansion of the
water protection area, as it also suggests a re-allocation of rights in favour of the public.
The two regimes involved, those of land use and water resources, have been articulated in a
system drawing from the Pigovian model of principal-agent. Thus, transaction costs that
would have been incurred if the compensation was decided through individual bargains
were significantly reduced. In order to achieve the desired level of water quality, the choice
was taken to regulate land use and production practices. The process was facilitated by the
existence of an established set of rules and a control system in the form of organic farming.
In the same way, policy measures like agri-environmental payments and marketing
initiatives were used, with differing degrees of success, to accelerate the transition process.
Knowledge and information structures available to all organic farmers accommodated their
respective needs. The market solution selected, however, allowed neither space for mutual
learning, nor encouraged specific collaboration amongst farmers, agents, local authorities or
research networks.
In Imathia, the regime studied was an agri-food regime. Its interdependencies with the
water resource regime, although formally strong, were constrained by efforts to maintain
another collectively managed good: the quality and image of the main product (the peach).
The strategy chosen was to regulate the production process. In this case study, the high
number of farms made coordination of individual efforts an almost impossible task. Hence,
an institutional change was a prerequisite in order to successfully manage the necessary
technological changes. A way of reducing costs has been to use a novel institution,
proposed by a public actor: a standard designed to protect natural resources and
biodiversity. In this case, however, there were no established information, auditing-control,
or advisory structures as there had been in the Mangfall Valley. Hence, the public
certification agency, producer groups, input providers, researchers and experts had to
redefine their role and establish, expand and re-orientate networks, playing the hybrid role
of both regime and niche actors. This collective coordination scheme imbued the agri-food
regime with environmental elements, although the initial objective was not environmental
protection. On the other hand, the process relieved farmers' organizations from clientelism,
empowering them and strengthening their bonds with local society.
In all three case studies two regimes; agri-food and water resources, coexisted, with
varying power imbalances, creating tensions and friction. At the same time, the initiatives
studied were of different origin and directions, from a typical top-down process in the
Mangfall Valley and Imathia, to a bottom-up process, gradually gaining space among peers
 
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