Agriculture is coming from a primairy and urgent good – food production- for the sustaing, health and wellbeing of the people. In the starting years of the Agricultural policy – and we can go back to Joseph in Egypt in the Bible – we the government task in providing enough food for the people. That implicates an Government who is very present in development, in preserving some food for times of trouble or modern: by not functioning markets. Especially after the World war II the Common Agricultural Policy was directed centrally from Brussel in all kinds of regulations for the sector and for the country policies on agriculture. AP is historically, systematically and for the future organized around policy centres who have power, guidelines and money to create a common strategy for priority goods of the people. AP is in the mean time embedded in a very strong economic and technological chain network which had been very effective but …. Has also his flaws.

Rural development starts almost immediately with the characteristics of the different regions and the involvement of different actors in the region. It are not the primary and priority goods of getting alive, but about the goods we need beyond the act of getting alive: the life quality and life conditions of the people. When we inhabit a beatiful landscape, or recreate, or learn, or creating regional culture, we are taking the next steps in living. In some sense is this reflected in the RP framework: we empower the regional actors to sustain their diverse rural area, to develop new products in the region for making it attractive and livable. It is characteristic that the European LEADER bottom up approach has created so much energy that it is now embedded in new rural policy framework (axis 4).
RP has created a lot of dynamics in regions, but has it the economic and structural power to regain the regional quality and diversity which is in need for sustaining and healthy communities?

AP and RP are coming from one European DG on Agriculture. It has two departments on agriculture and on rural development. They are different in policy framework, in budget, in connecting to regional affairs and in style of operating. In the modulation and progressive modulation budget from one department (agriculture) is coming to the other (rural development).
With our concept of the Versatile Countryside (see www.versatilecountryside.eu) we connect entrepreneurs, marketcreation, regional development and knowledge circulation. In some sense it connects the separated worlds of agriculture and rural development. It also creates a policy frame which connects the best of both worlds: the primary and priority product of food and the culture around that product (regional context).
I find it fascinating to reflect from this new concept on the difference between AP and RP. Can we discuss the formula: VC = RP + AP?
Some food for thought for the next blog and I am curious about your thoughts on this!