Globalisation and the local agricultural landscape: current change patterns and public policy interventions

TY - CHAP

T1 - Globalisation and the local agricultural landscape

T2 - current change patterns and public policy interventions

AU - Primdahl, Jørgen

PY - 2010/1/1

Y1 - 2010/1/1

N2 - Introduction The way in which a place is shaped depends partly on autonomous decisions and actions taken by local people, partly on local adaptations and responses to decisions and events from outside, and partly on outside decisions. The specific balance or constellation of such events, decisions and actions is a key to understanding the differences between places, and likewise a key to understanding differences and similarities in the way local agricultural landscapes are changing (Jones, 1988). Unfortunately this key is not a simple one, for a number of highly interrelated reasons. First of all because external driving forces are complex and increasingly affecting the local landscape. These changes in external influence happen either through overall shifts in the dynamics of globalisation (as outlined in Chapter 1), or through some of the consequences of these changes, including changes in production, increased migratory movements and urbanisation (Harvey, 1996, 2000), all of which have significant impacts on most agricultural landscapes in the developed world. These changes take place within networks organised at different scales in what Castells has termed the ‘space of flows’, which links changes in the local landscape with decisions and actions taken outside, often at great distances from the landscape in question (Castells, 2000). A second reason for the complexity of landscape change has to do with the changing social composition of agricultural landscapes and the changing roles and importance of agriculture.

AB - Introduction The way in which a place is shaped depends partly on autonomous decisions and actions taken by local people, partly on local adaptations and responses to decisions and events from outside, and partly on outside decisions. The specific balance or constellation of such events, decisions and actions is a key to understanding the differences between places, and likewise a key to understanding differences and similarities in the way local agricultural landscapes are changing (Jones, 1988). Unfortunately this key is not a simple one, for a number of highly interrelated reasons. First of all because external driving forces are complex and increasingly affecting the local landscape. These changes in external influence happen either through overall shifts in the dynamics of globalisation (as outlined in Chapter 1), or through some of the consequences of these changes, including changes in production, increased migratory movements and urbanisation (Harvey, 1996, 2000), all of which have significant impacts on most agricultural landscapes in the developed world. These changes take place within networks organised at different scales in what Castells has termed the ‘space of flows’, which links changes in the local landscape with decisions and actions taken outside, often at great distances from the landscape in question (Castells, 2000). A second reason for the complexity of landscape change has to do with the changing social composition of agricultural landscapes and the changing roles and importance of agriculture.

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-0-521-51789-8

T3 - Studies in Landscape Ecology

SP - 149

EP - 167

BT - Globalisation and agricultural landscapes

A2 - Primdahl, Jørgen

A2 - Swaffield, Simon

PB - Cambridge University Press

ER -