<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> Looking ahead, rural Europe faces significant challenges. Some of these are long-term and will require major adaptation, such as climate change, increasing scarcity of fossil fuels and the ageing indigenous population. Others are medium-term and subject to political uncertainty, such as economic stagnation and unemployment, pressures from in-migration, and constrained public finances. Markets appear likely to continue to encourage conventional farm modernisation and capitalization, but these may increase, rather than resolve, rural problems and tensions. Seen through an ecological lens, conventional patterns of development decrease rural social, environmental and economic resilience, and yet this is becoming increasingly important. New approaches are needed which can work with global and local processes to maintain rural diversity, quality and community: key factors in resilience-building. Interesting tactics may involve increasing local capacity to act, stimulating new local products, services and markets and new forms of pluri-activity. Business profitability and productivity will remain central, but can be realised in a variety of unconventional ways. Some examples and approaches are briefly presented and some general lessons identified for the new Rural Development Policy and Programmes, 2014–2020.</p></abstract>

Looking ahead, rural Europe faces significant challenges. Some of these are long-term and will require major adaptation, such as climate change, increasing scarcity of fossil fuels and the ageing indigenous population. Others are medium-term and subject to political uncertainty, such as economic stagnation and unemployment, pressures from in-migration, and constrained public finances. Markets appear likely to continue to encourage conventional farm modernisation and capitalization, but these may increase, rather than resolve, rural problems and tensions. Seen through an ecological lens, conventional patterns of development decrease rural social, environmental and economic resilience, and yet this is becoming increasingly important. New approaches are needed which can work with global and local processes to maintain rural diversity, quality and community: key factors in resilience-building. Interesting tactics may involve increasing local capacity to act, stimulating new local products, services and markets and new forms of pluri-activity. Business profitability and productivity will remain central, but can be realised in a variety of unconventional ways. Some examples and approaches are briefly presented and some general lessons identified for the new Rural Development Policy and Programmes, 2014–2020.

New Approaches to Revitalise Rural Economies and Communities – Reflections of a Policy Analyst

Rural Policy, Countryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire,

European Countryside

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Looking ahead, rural Europe faces significant challenges. Some of these are long-term and will require major adaptation, such as climate change, increasing...

New Approaches to Revitalise Rural Economies and Communities – Reflections of a Policy Analyst

Article Category: Research notes

Published Online: Sep 22, 2016

Page range: 175 - 182

Received: Mar 23, 2016

Accepted: Jun 03, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/euco-2016-0014

© by Janet Dwyer

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.