AGRICULTURAL POLICIES, FAMILY AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT: THE NEED FOR A NEW CAP
which can be found in different rural territories. Add to this the production of collective goods such as biodiversity, the management of the countryside and protection of the environment, and the provision of new services such as farm holidays, or the integration of new activities on the farm as in the case of social agriculture. Diversifying production at the same time as reappraising internal resources and the farmer’s labour make it possible to increase technical efficiency and create and maintain greater added value. As Sivini (2006) points out, “emancipation from those who dominate the market is strengthened in the multifunctional rural space through cooperation between producers, necessary in order to empower, qualify and stabilize the supply available from a short chain”. The creation of new relationships with consumers via the short supply chain and, in particular, with fair trade consumer groups, make it possible to eliminate intermediaries and distinguish products from the anonymous ‘commodities’ of the agroindustrial chain, allowing the farmers themselves to reappropriate value-added. As numerous authors point out, empirical evidence demonstrates how these processes can have positive effects not only on the incomes of the farmers involved but also via the knock-on effects on employment and development of an entire rural economy. These processes are based on bottom-up innovative initiatives, in other words, they are created and reproduced by endogenous subjects and by social forces active in the sector, not supported by policies and often impeded by the technological dictatorship dominant in Europe (a sets of rules, procedures, models, equipment, standards) aimed at reproducing the logic of modernization (Ploeg van der and Renting,2000; Onorati, 1998). Rural development is a process strongly opposed by powerful politico-economic interests. On the one hand there are the interests of agribusinesses which push for increased modernization and industrialization in agriculture (use of GMO, computer assisted technologies, new chemical and pharmaceutical products) and on the other, interests which aim to profit from interpreting the reinforcement of rural economy in terms of a continual introduction of non-agricultural activities (transformation of agricultural land into recreational space, sub-urbanisation, etc.) and the expropriation of agriculture (entailing relocation in Eastern Europe or in countries in the southern hemisphere, Ploeg van der and Renting 2004; Ploeg van der, 2006b).
The “Health Check” inadequate approach for rural development, and the need for a new CAP
It is evident that the Common Agricultural Policy and its reforms don’t provide support for the many heterogeneous rural development processes created from below. CAP reforms (such as the “Health Check”69) have modified the system of intervention without making any real impression on the underlying processes which have been set in motion, or the connected interests of the retailers and agrifood industry and of the larger agricultural enterprises. The Health Check pushes for a definitive decoupling of aid in order to “clear away obstacles which are hindering farmers’ responses to market signals” (Ficher Boel 2008). According to the European Commission, as Commissioner Ficher Boel has emphasised (2008), “Farmers whose direct payments are not tied to production are farmers who can respond quickly and accurately to what the market needs”. The actual effect of deregulation of the market and decoupling of aid is really to hand 69 The European Commission’s proposals for the Health Check are presented in this volume in the contribution of the CSA. See also Commission of the European Communities (2007) COM (2007) 722, Brussels, 20th November.
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