Philip Lowe

Regulating the New Rural Spaces: the Uneven Development of Land

With the demise of agricultural productivism, that set of economic and political arrangements which made food production the overriding aim of rural policy, new forms of regulation have come into existence. These are linked to new patterns of development in rural areas which have arisen as economic actors seek to exploit the opportunities presented by the crisis in agriculture. Both development and its regulation have become localised — that is, detached from the national regime associated with productivism. This is leading to increased differentiation. We examine three land development sectors — minerals, farm building conversion and golf — to illustrate how the processes of differentiation are driven by a variety of economic, political and social actors. These are assessed using the notion of ‘arenas of representation’. Two arenas are identified — those of the market and regulation — showing how uneven development of the countryside can be understood as arising from action-in-context. Such differentiation, or the emergence of new rural spaces, is inevitable in the post-productivist era.

Setting the next agenda? British and French approaches to the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy

Abstract The paper examines the key new discretionary features of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after the Agenda 2000 reforms. These include the possibilities for reallocating a proportion of farmers’ direct payments and the implementation of the Rural Development Regulation, hailed by the European Commission as the new ‘second pillar’ to the CAP. The paper compares and contrasts the ways in which Britain and France are taking a lead in using these features, according to their distinctive national agricultural agendas and rural priorities, and considers the implications for the future development of European policy.

Knowledge exchange: a review and research agenda for environmental management

There is increasing emphasis on the need for effective ways of sharing knowledge to enhance environmental management and sustainability. Knowledge exchange (KE) are processes that generate, share and/or use knowledge through various methods appropriate to the context, purpose, and participants involved. KE includes concepts such as sharing, generation, coproduction, comanagement, and brokerage of knowledge. This paper elicits the expert knowledge of academics involved in research and practice of KE from different disciplines and backgrounds to review research themes, identify gaps and questions, and develop a research agenda for furthering understanding about KE. Results include 80 research questions prefaced by a review of research themes. Key conclusions are: (1) there is a diverse range of questions relating to KE that require attention; (2) there is a particular need for research on understanding the process of KE and how KE can be evaluated; and (3) given the strong interdependency of research questions, an integrated approach to understanding KE is required. To improve understanding of KE, action research methodologies and embedding evaluation as a normal part of KE research and practice need to be encouraged. This will foster more adaptive approaches to learning about KE and enhance effectiveness of environmental management.

Political ecology and the social sciences - The state of the art

The ‘environment’ as a political issue has had a mixed history. Its sudden upsurge in the late 1960s was followed by many ups and downs. It has, however, continued to press itself on to the political agenda in various forms. Most recently, the rise of green parties in Western Europe has demonstrated that the environment is not one of many issues which come and go but has led to more fundamental political change.

The preservationist paradox: modernism, environmentalism and the politics of spatial division

According to Bruno Latour, the imposition of crude classificatory schemes onto complex entities has two main effects: firstly, the classifications lead social actors to sift the world into the schemes’ simple categories; secondly, underlying relations subvert the schemes’ functioning, resulting in the production of transgressive ‘hybrids’. Thus, classification and relation interact and this interaction shapes both the practice of classification and the world that is classified. In this paper, we examine the interaction between a scheme of spatial classification and the spaces that are enrolled within the scheme. We show that a division between urban and rural areas was put in place in post-war England in order to protect a ‘vulnerable’ rural nature from urban advance. However, as soon as it was imposed, this division was transgressed by complex socio-economic processes. We assess the response to this transgression by considering the activities of the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), an environmental group that played some considerable part in constructing the urban–rural divide in the first place. We show that the CPRE has responded to the ‘paradox of preservationism’ by placing urban–rural divisions in the context of ‘ecological’ relationships. We illustrate this ‘ecologization’ of the modernist divide using the example of housing and we argue that the CPREs ecological approach illustrates how a new alignment between ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ may herald a new and more sophisticated form of spatial classification.

Virus-crisis-institutional Change: the Foot and Mouth Actor Network and the Governance of Rural Affairs in the UK

This paper adopts an actor-network theory approach in order to follow the associations of actors involved in the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) epidemic in the UK. We follow the chains of translation through three key stages: from virus to disease; from disease to crises in agriculture, the rural economy and rural policy; and from those crises to the institutional change that occurred with the demise of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the arrival of the new Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs. What emerges from this approach is that the UK Governments initial attempts to combat FMD caused a rural economy crisis not through mismanagement but through a more fundamental mis-problematization of the situation. By viewing rural areas through an agricultural lens, Government actors failed to appreciate the presence of other actors in the countryside, a failure that resulted in massive social and economic impacts outside of the agricultural sector.

Environmentally Sensitive Areas: incrementalism or reform?

Abstract This paper examines the origins of Environinentally Sensitive Areas in the U.K. and the political context of their formulation and implementation. A detailed case study of the designation of the Somerset Levels ESA is provided. Conflict between farmers and conservationists erupted in the Levels in the aftennath of the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act. The paper shows how the uneasy truce, which emerged with the progress of management agreements under the 1981 Act, developed into an enthusiasm among farmers for conservation notifications when the ESA policy was introduced in 1986–1987. Farmers came to see some of the financial benefits of compensatory environmental policies especially in the context of declining levels of agricultural support. Political harmony on the Levels is threatened, however, by renewed concern over environmental changes caused by a general lowering of the water levels in recent years. The problem of water levels is, in part, a consequence of the activities of the Internal Drainage Boards, whose independence and, in some cases, undemocratic character remains a serious problem for environmental management on the Levels. Whilst there are many positive features about the ESA policy, in contrast to some aspects of the 1981 legislation, the paper emphasises the need for still greater co-ordination and consistency of policy.

Shifting values in agriculture: the farm family and pollution regulation1

Abstract It has long been acknowledged that the notion of family continuity of farm occupation through succession is one of the central tenets of the ethos of ‘family’ farming, but recent evidence suggests that it is being called into question by family members. Farming practices are being pursued in a rapidly changing world, an important feature of which is a greater level of public and political concern for protecting the rural environment. This paper examines a range of new influences affecting farming practice and environmental consciousness and the implications these have for farming values, particularly that of family succession. Using evidence from a study of dairy farm families and pollution regulation in Devon in South West England, it suggests that rural social change is providing new routes through which environmental values can flow through farm households, influencing the ways farmers understand the environmental implications of their practices, and the ways they and their families think about their long-term futures.

Barriers to research collaboration across disciplines: scientific paradigms and institutional practices

In a recent paper in this journal it was suggested that the conventional knowledge practices of disciplines are the fundamental obstacle to mutual understanding between academic experts. Such a position, we argue, underplays the institutional relationships that recreate expert and disciplinary divides. To demonstrate our case we discuss how in the UK the evolving relationship between the government and research councils has crucially altered the context for efforts to stimulate interdisciplinary research. Our analysis highlights the scope for changes in institutional structures and practices that would facilitate broader and more encompassing research into complex sustainability problems.

Policy Framing and Learning the Lessons from the UK's Foot and Mouth Disease Crisis

The 2001 foot and mouth disease (FMD) epidemic cost over £8 billion and wreaked havoc upon the British countryside. The paper examines the institutional response to the crisis and the subsequent inquiries. Drawing on the ‘garbage-can model’ of organisational choice and ideas of ‘policy framing’, it argues that the institutional response to FMD was tightly focused on agricultural interests. Subsequently, a compartmentalised approach to lesson learning has been partial in its coverage. The result is that important lessons, of a more holistic and integrated nature, have been overlooked despite the replacement of the Ministry of Agriculture with a new Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.