Geographia Polonica (2003) vol. 76, iss. 1

Abstract

This paper examines the changes that Denmark's agricultural sector has witnessed during the past two decades as well as the effects of the EU Common Agricul-tural Policy (CAP) on agricultural production in the country. It also discusses the potential for new types of farm ownership and organic agriculture as alternatives to conventional agricultural production. The paper addresses some of the significant environmental pro-blems which have resulted from intensive agriculture, and presents the most important agri-environmental programs which seek to remedy the negative environmental impact of intensive agriculture.

Keywords: agricultural production, agri-environmental programs, CAP, Denmark

Abstract

This paper interprets a contemporary crisis in the farming and food sector of the United Kingdom and evaluates the response in national state intervention in reorienting the sector from 'productivity' towards 'sustainability'. Policy documents from an advisory Policy Commission on The Future of Farming and Food and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in England are examined. The analysis reveals three dimensions in an emerging discourse on the sustainable development of farming and food, namely competition, environment and rural development, together with a continuing tension between the three dimensions in policy making, and constraints placed on national state intervention by the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union.

Keywords: farming and food, sustainability, competition, environment, rural development, United Kingdom

Ian Bowler, Department of Geography, University of Leicester, Leicester LEI 7RH, United Kingdom

Abstract

This paper considers agricultural restructuring in Hungary. The break--up of cooperatives and changes in farm ownership and organizational structures occurred extensively in the decade following the issuing of the collectivization laws, and resulted in a mixed farm structure with various forms of corporate and individual commercial farms. In the second half of the 1990s, the organizational form of large-scale farms tended to change. The new model allowed for a rapid concentration of assets in the hands of rela-tively few investors, with voting rights proportionate to ownership. The equivalent of this process among small-scale producers was the emergence of the commercial farm sector, and, in parallel, the withdrawal of large numbers of producers from commodity production into self-sufficient plot farming. However, there have been pronounced regional differen-ces in the agricultural restructuring process in relation to factors such as natural endow-ments and location relative to urban centres and developing zones.

Keywords: agriculture, post-socialist transformation, concentration processes, commercial farm sector, self-sufficient farming, Hungary

Katalin Koväcs, Department for Regional Development Research, Centre for Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences 1385 Budapest 62, P.O. Box 833. Hungary

Abstract

The article discusses the concept of the rural area, demographic change therein, the development of non-agricultural economic functions, transformations in agri-culture in Poland and its state of readiness for European Union accession. Most attention is thus paid to the agricultural economy.

Keywords: rural areas, agriculture, economic transformation, demographic processes, Poland

Jerzy Bański [jbanski@twarda.pan.pl], Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland

Abstract

In the last decade of the 20th century fundamental changes in all sphe-res of social-economic life occurred throughout the rural areas in Bulgaria. The most important of them are the economic, demographic and social changes. This article treats only some of these multilateral changes. Now the development of the rural areas is one of the priorities of Bulgaria's national regional policy.

Keywords: rural areas, economic and social transformation, depopulation, ageing, prospects for development, Bulgaria

Margarita Ilieva [ilieva_mm@abv.bg], Institute of Geography, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences "G. Bonchev" str., block 3, Sofia 1113, Bulgaria
Chavdar Mladenov, Institute of Geography, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences "G. Bonchev" str., block 3, Sofia 1113, Bulgaria

Abstract

After the Republic of Ireland joined the European Union in 1973, its rural development efforts tended to focus more specifically on agriculture. Development during the first two decades of EU membership is discussed, followed by considerations of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, of EU Structural Funding and of rural community development initiatives. Since the mid 1990s, and prompted by the EU, there have been moves towards the evolution of a strategically planned and more broadly based and integrated approach to rural development policy.

Keywords: agriculture, European Union, Ireland, rural development

Desmond A. Gillmor, Department of Geography, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Abstract

The population development in urban and rural areas in Finland indi-cates increasing regional disparities. An ageing population and strong migration flows to-wards the largest centres have the future in most of the rural areas looking bleak. Regional policy agendas show different reactions towards this tendency, among them a call for an urban-rural interaction policy.

Keywords: migration, ageing, urban-rural interaction, regional policies, Finland

Satu Nivalainen, Pellervo Economic Research Institute, Eerikinkatu 28 A, FIN-00180 Helsinki, Finland
Kaisa Schmidt-Thome, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Helsinki University of Technology, PO Box 9300, FIN-02015 HUT, Finland

Abstract

This article analyses an internal migration pattern in terms of out-migration from the core of a growing urban region to the hinterland. The case addressed is that of the Umea region in northern Sweden. The analysis is divided into two parts; exami-ning socio-economic characteristics among the out-migrants on one hand, and on the other testing various spatial components in the hinterland with regard to their impact on where out-migrants have settled.

Keywords: attractiveness, counterurbanization, migration, rural areas, Sweden

Niklas Bergström, Department of Social and Economic Geography, Umeä University, SE-901 87 Umeä
Ulf Wiberg, Department of Social and Economic Geography, Umeä University, SE-901 87 Umeä

Antonin Vaishar, Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geonics, Branch Brno Drobneho 28, 602 00 Brno, Czechia
Eva Kallabova, Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geonics, Branch Brno Drobneho 28, 602 00 Brno, Czechia
Jana Zapletalova, Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geonics, Branch Brno Drobneho 28, 602 00 Brno, Czechia

Ryszard Domański, Academy of Economics Poznań, Department of Spatial and Environmental Economics al. Niepodległości 10, 60-967 Poznań, Poland