The James Hutton Institute
This page is no longer updated. The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute joined forces with SCRI on 1 April 2011 to create The James Hutton Institute.
The James Hutton InstituteThis page is no longer updated. The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute joined forces with SCRI on 1 April 2011 to create The James Hutton Institute.
1) Agricultural Economics Research Institute (LEI-DLO),
P.O. Box 29703, 2502 LS The Hague, the Netherlands
2) Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), 158 Buckingham Palace
Road, London SW1W 9TR, United Kingdom
- Marginalisation
There is no clearly defined and commonly accepted definition of what
is marginal land or marginal agriculture. Perhaps the most commonly accepted
definition of a marginal agricultural situation is one which is at the
margin of economic viability. Agricultural marginalisation is considered
to be a process, driven by a combination of social, economic, political
and environmental factors, by which certain areas of farmland ceases to
be viable under an existing land use and socio-economic structure.
Marginalisation of agriculture on European farms appears to be particularly
concentrated in the less fertile and drier zones in the Mediterranean.
It may consist of a combination of intensification and extensification
of land used agriculturally. Marginalisation takes a variety of forms and
occurs at different scales, ranging from the individual patch of land to
sizeable regions. It could eventually lead to abandonment, which limits
management of semi-natural areas.
The objectives of the paper are:
(i) to analyse current trends and processes of marginalisation in Europe;
(ii) to examine methods for identifying areas within which agricultural
land is marginal; and
(iii) to investigate agricultural policies which might contribute to the
mitigation of environmentally damaging effects of agricultural marginalisation
and encourage viable uses of land in marginal areas.
- Farming systems in potentially marginal areas in Europe
Areas which are most susceptible to marginalisation are likely to be found in extensive farming regions and those where small-scale farming is prevalent. Regions dominated by extensive farming include most of Spain, large areas of southern France, parts of the UK, Ireland and Italy. They cover about 30% of the utilized agricultural areas but only around 15% of agricultural holdings. These regions account for more than half of all holdings in EUR 12 and only 15% of the utilized agricultural area.
Many of the farming systems of greatest importance for nature conservation
and the landscape are found in the extensive agricultural regions.
- Changes in agricultural policy in potentially marginal areas in Europe
In the period before the 1992 CAP reform direct subsidies were more
significant in regions with extensive farming systems than in the other
group of regions in the then twelve EU countries. In 1990/91 about 20%
of all direct subsidies in the EUR 12 were directed towards the regions
with extensive farming systems, although their share in final production
was only 9%. Direct subsidies in this group of regions on average are about
a third of family farm income, corresponding to almost 3,000 ECU per holding,
which was about double that of the average for all farms in EUR 12 at the
time.
The paper derives from a recent project by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) in the United Kingdom and the Agricultural Economics Research Institute (LEI-DLO) in the Netherlands. The report, entitled 'Farming at the Margins: Abandonment or redeployment of agricultural land in Europe' was released last December.