Rural development initiatives, the implications of the

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Rural development initiatives, the implications of the "Cork declaration"

Michel Blanc

I will devote most of this report to describe the main features of rural development in the recent period and to underline the factors which have played a decisive role in these changes. That will lead me to stress that the future of rural areas depends as much on macro-economics policies and forces as on specific rural policies. Finally, I will briefly examine what can be considered as « rural development initiatives » and what could be the implications of the Cork declaration on these "initiatives".

Roughly, rural areas can be defined as characterised by a relatively low density of population (the criteria adopted by the OECD is less than 150 inhabitants by square kilometres), and by the predominant of the vegetation cover in the landscape whether it be cultivated or not. Rural areas are very diverse depending on their proximity to urban centres, their endowment in natural resources, their social fabric, their cultural heritage. Rural development can be defined as the process which brings about changes in population and employment in rural areas.

The more dramatic change that rural areas have witnessed over the last twenty years or so has been a turnaround in internal migration patterns with the long-standing rural exodus being replaced by what has been sometimes called an "urban exodus". Of course, in every country this process has unfolded in a very uneven way, with some areas undergoing an impressive growth of population while in others out-migration flows have continued to outnumber inward migration. That increasing migration of people from urban centres to rural areas results from at least three distinct phenomena : periurbanization, that is to say a dramatic rise in the number of commuters accompanied by an enlargement of commuting catchments ; an increase in the number of retired people settling down in the countryside ; an important flow of working class return migrants, especially in many Mediterranean rural, generated by the sharp reduction in unskilled blue-collar employment in old industrial centres of North Western European countries (Germany and France).

Periurbanization is usually said as having been due to an increase in the housing cost gap between urban agglomeration and less populated locations, a worsening of urban pollution and a shift in values enhancing the preferences for positive rural amenities with respect to urban ones, and last but not least a fall in people transportation costs. People transportation costs cover two aspects : spending of money and spending of time in travelling. The latter has been reduced sharply by road infrastructure improvements, by the generalisation of individual car ownership which was allowed by a widespread increase in household incomes going together with a reduction in income inequalities (at least until the late eighties), and also by a tendency to diminish the number of working days and therefore the number of home to workplace journeys.

Immigration of retirees in the countryside was fuelled first by a rise in their number in the society at large resulting from the lengthening of life expectancy and, in many countries, also from the lowering of retirement age. But that would not have been sufficient if it had not be accompanied by an increase in their pensions allowing them to have a car without which retirement in the countryside would entail loneliness and cutting links with family and friend networks. The setting up of the welfare state has been a key factor of the development of the migration of those categories towards rural areas.

That increase in urban to rural migrations was accompanied by a parallel decline in the opposite flow mainly due to demographic factors. Traditionally the rural exodus was basically fed by small farmers and their families, but this pool is gradually drying up. Nowadays, out-migration from the countryside results for its main part from the difficulties faced by young people to enter the local labour market especially by those with a higher education who are very unlikely to find nearby a job matching up to their expectations.

First, the reversal in migration trends has had a strong impact on the development of some activities in rural areas. The changes in the composition of the rural population (and its growth in some places), with often an increasing proportion of middle-class people and of retirees, have generated new needs and new jobs especially in the personal and household services sector (in particular in the health sector) in rural areas.

Second, rural areas are perfectly suited, because of the low land rent, to space consuming activities. Agriculture and forestry, of course, but also tourism. The rise in the average income linked with the high income elasticity of recreational goods and services, the congestion of more traditional destination (littoral areas, for instance), the increasing tendency towards splitting off holidays time between different periods of the year, have been key factors accounting for the growing demand for green tourism and the development of the related activities.

Third, as the number of employees and therefore the added value produced by unit of surface is higher in the service sector than in manufacturing industries, the rise of the employment in the former has made land competition fiercer in agglomeration centres and has contributed to drive the manufacturing industries away from them. The extent of this manufacturing dispersal throughout the countryside seems to vary with the countries. For instance, in Ireland the highest rate of new firm formation in manufacturing sectors was found in the most rural and least industrialised areas. In France, this dispersal seems to have mainly affected periurban rural areas. In Italy it is rather a shift in regional localisation.

Fourth, as large companies have been seeking to obtain a greater flexibility, they have tended to reduce their own staff and to develop sub-contracting usually with small firms. With lowering transportation costs and the rapid development of new information and communication technologies, subcontractors do not necessarily need to be located within the immediate neighbourhood of their principal. However, the fall-out of the development of advanced information and communication technologies on rural economies remain to be assessed.

Fifth, with the globalization, European rural areas have lost the comparative advantage they had over urban centres as regards unskilled labour costs, and have suffered from the delocalization of some labour intensive manufacturing activities towards developing countries.

Finally, farm employment keeps on shrinking as labour productivity grows faster than the demand addressed to the agricultural sector.

Rural initiatives can be understood as actions undertaken with the view of bringing about changes in rural areas. They can come from local or external actors. With that definition individual and not co-ordinated decisions or policy measures aiming not explicitly at modifying the situation of rural areas cannot be considered as rural initiatives. The factors having played a decisive role in the transformation of rural areas during the recent periods do not result from rural initiatives, but from macro-economic changes (globalization, work-time organisation, worsening of urban pollution), from macro-policy measures (the setting up of the welfare state, public spending on road infrastructures), from demographic tendencies (lengthening of life expectancy), and from individual decisions to adapt to these changes.

Does that means that rural initiatives does not matter? Of course not. But their impact depends crucially on the evolution of the key factors listed above. What makes the difference between rural areas placed under similar conditions of localisation is, first of all, their ability to attract new people. The Cork Declaration expresses a willingness to shift from a pure agricultural policy to a rural policy of which two main characteristics would be to help maintain a pleasant and attractive environment through adequate aids to farmers, and to adopt a bottom-up approach supporting local (or more precisely regional) initiatives. One can only agree with such general orientations. However, it must be stressed that if in some areas the main function of farming is to maintain the environment, then this can be achieved with few people engaged in agriculture : extensive farming is probably the more efficient and less costly way to realise this objective. Second, most the Community funds are to be directed to actions resulting from local initiatives, what will be then the future of the truly less favoured areas : those where local initiatives are scarce?