Development Potentials of Rural Areas – The Case of Slovenia

2015

Depuis sa recente independance, la Slovenie tente d'integrer de nouvelles structures et institutions economiques et politiques. Le passage d'une economie planifiee a une economie de marche a provoque d'importants changements structurels. Les espaces ruraux ont ete particulierement touches. L'article discute des specificites des espaces ruraux slovenes, analyse la conception nationale du developpement rural et evalue les possibilites pour un developpement rural durable.

Land Degradation & Development, 1990

Based on the findings from the research project: ‘Alternative Uses for Land and the New Farmworker—Segregation versus Integration’, this paper analyses broad lines of development and available options for rural areas in the European Community. Taking into account various limitations on agricultural, forestry, and nature conservation activities, the emergence of three agro-structural regional types is likely to occur: —rural areas with intensive agriculture;—rural areas constituting mainly agrarian-touristic peripheries, which exploit their endogenous development potentials on the basis of quasi-tourism—less-favoured areas with a tendency towards depopulation, which may serve as ecological balance areas.—rural areas with intensive agriculture;—rural areas constituting mainly agrarian-touristic peripheries, which exploit their endogenous development potentials on the basis of quasi-tourism—less-favoured areas with a tendency towards depopulation, which may serve as ecological balance areas.

E3S Web of Conferences, 2014

The critical waste of the primary resource soil in Europe, is mainly due to the current paradigm of population and activities settlement, strongly dominated since XIX century by a "metropolisation" process: the city is the place where the majority of people want to live, where migrant's flows are directed to, where each new inhabitant would like to find a home, a job, a better life than they had in their place of origin. The cities today house 50% of the world population and use 75% of the resources of the whole planet: and these percentages are continuously growing. Over 70% of Europe's population is now living in urban areas, and these in turn have grown by almost 80% over the last fifty years. 1 Rural areas include not only agricultural areas but areas covered by forests, parks, lawns, protected natural zones as well.

Proceedings of the International Conference “Achievements and challenges in the food sector and rural areas during the 10 years after EU enlargement”, 2014

Slovenia joined the European Union in 2004. The alignment process and the adoption of the EU acquis in agriculture and rural development fields have induced many changes. The paper aims to provide insights about the implications of Slovenia's accession for its agricultural sector and rural areas. It describes and analyses the trends of different economic, social and environmental indicators in the period 2000-2013 based on the secondary data from the European Commission (Eurostat), FAOSTATand the World Bank. Considered variables cover different aspects of three axes of the EU rural development policy framework 2007-2013: agricultural sector competitiveness, environment, and life quality and economy diversification in rural areas. Accession effects have been rather mixed. There are still many challenges that should be addressed to move towards a competitive, environmentally friendly and sustainable agricultural sector, economically vibrant rural economies and socially inclusive rural communities.

International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development 6/2: 35-41, 2015

Bosnia, Montenegro, and Serbia (BMS) are in a phase of consolidation, which implies rising of economic growth, agricultural productivity, and fostering rural development. Therefore, it is crucial to have a clear idea about problems faced by rural population in order to design effective rural development policies. The paper aims at highlighting the main problems in rural areas of BMS with a particular focus on those hampering good governance and increased diversification of their rural economies. For each country, significance of the problems was identified; and a critical analysis was performed to highlight causes, implications in terms of rural governance and policy, and potential solutions. Problems were identified in the framework of surveys dealing with agricultural and rural development governance that involved representatives of public, civil society, and international organizations: 120 in Bosnia (winter 2011), 50 in Montenegro (winter 2012), and 120 in Serbia (summer 2013). Economic problems include difficult access to financial resources, low level of investments, rural economy diversification, limited employment opportunities, small and uncompetitive farms, and rural enterprises. Remoteness and isolation, bad local natural resources management, and increased pollutions were the main environmental and geographic problems mentioned by the interviewees. Socio-cultural and demographic problems encompass rural poverty, low quality of life, gender inequity, low human capital of the rural population, unpopularity of agriculture and alarming negative demographic trends. Focus of local development strategies mainly on agriculture and lack of local spatial plans are some of the political and regulatory problems. There are also problems related to the poor physical infrastructure and services, and lack of processing facilities and local markets. For smooth accession to the European Union (EU), BMS should address these problems urgently in a systemic and holistic way to unlock the growth potential of rural areas, taking stock of the current EU's rural development policy.

2007

2002

V prispevku je predstavljena tipološka členitev podeželja v Sloveniji, ki ta prostor deli v tri osnovne tipe: obmestna območja, značilna podeželska območja ter območja praznjenja. Sledi primerjalna analiza stanja in možnosti opredeljenih podeželskih območij na podlagi vzorca in z uporabo demografskih, kmetijskih, ekonomskih in socialnih kazalcev. Sociološki del raziskave temelji na rezultatih ankete, izvedene med vodstvenimi ljudmi v vzorčnih lokalnih skupnostih, ter vključuje mnenja o stanju in razvojnih možnostih vzorčnih podeželskih območij ter predloge in pripombe pripravljalcem politike razvoja podeželja. K Kl lj ju uč čn ne e b be es se ed de e: : podeželska območja, tipologija, razvoj podeželja, Slovenija.

Acta geographica Slovenica, 2015

Per Olof Persson, 2001

Understanding differential economic performance at local and regional levels is a key element in devising practical strategies and programmes for sustainable rural and regional development in different contexts. In Dynamics of Rural Areas (DORA), we are concerned ...

with a specific focus on agriculture, and using available data at Eurostat the main aim of this work has been to characterise the spatial components of rural are as within Europe. This data has been used to develop different typologies of 'rural', contributing to a fuller understanding of some of the similarities, differences and diversity between rural areas in regions and countries of the EU. It is anticipated that it will enable a comparative evaluation of territorial strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In this way, policy-makers and practitioners may use such information to formulate and target policies in a meaningful and regionally focused manner.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2022

2008

The study of regional disparities on the European scale is often conducted with the NUTS3 or NUTS2 statistical units of the Eurostat statistical office. Such a reading scale is too loose to allow a precise analysis of the qualitative differentiations between rural areas. This paper aims at suggesting a methodological re-positioning (a) on an efficient statistical definition of rural areas, and (b) on the proper scale of the analysis of rural facts, in order to isolate rural areas among global statistical tables and to build qualitative typologies on the current evolutions of the Central European Countryside. The example of Hungary will then be used as a concrete case-study.

Unfolding webs. Assen: …, 2008

In the year 2000 a multidisciplinary team of social scientists from several European countries argued, in a joint article published in Sociologia Ruralis (2000), that rural development basically was practice without theory (van der Ploeg et al. 2000) 2. Since then, rural development processes in Europe have gained considerable momentum and resulted in a dazzling array of new practices characterized by new dynamics and unanticipated impacts. Nevertheless, in 2006 the OECD again referred to the need for 'a new research agenda in rural development' (2006:19), implying that the nature, dynamics and heterogeneity of rural development processes, as they unfold in practice, were inadequately expressed in new theoretical frameworks. At the same time, rural development policies have continued to develop at supra-national, national, regional and local levels and, in the social sciences there have been some major shifts (away from earlier and, in retrospect, too limited and inflexible, models) that allow for a better understanding of a rapidly changing world. At the crossroads of changing practices, policies and theories it is now possible, we believe, to make a substantive step forward. What we aim for, in this collection of papers, is to tie together the many recent and significant achievements in practice, theory and policy in order to outline a comprehensive theory on rural development. The attempt to construct such a theory also corresponds to a call, formulated by the European Commission in its 6th Framework Programme, for an 'analysis of conceptual aspects of sustainable and integrated rural development' (EC 2005:32). Departing from the observation that 'a living countryside is essential for farming, as agricultural activity is essential for a living countryside', this call signals that 'rural development policy is […] no longer based on agriculture alone. Increased diversification, innovation and value added of products and services, both within and beyond the agricultural sector, are indispensable in order to promote integrated and sustainable rural development' (ibid). The FP6 document also observes that: 2 Unfolding Webs 'Rural development policy has been […] reinforced by CAP reform [which is] characterized by new measures designed to promote a living countryside, to preserve its diversity and to ensure restructuring and the improved competitiveness of the farming sector'. It therefore proposes that 'a key theme for research, strengthened by this widening of the rural policy area, is the mutual interactions that take place between agriculture, the environment and other aspects, social and economic, of the wider rural development processes'(ibid.). In short, the 6 th Framework Programme calls for a reconceptualization of the role of agriculture within the framework of wider rural development processes. This reconceptualization must account for, and simultaneously reflect, the large heterogeneity of Europe's rural regions, thus allowing for adequate inputs into the processes of policy formulation and implementation. At the same time, it must go beyond former sectoral approaches: it is to be interdisciplinary and holistic (ibid). Central to the approach that is to be introduced in this volume are the closely interconnected notions of (1) rural development, (2) the web that underlies and shapes rural development processes and (3) the diversity of rural regions. Rural regions differ in terms of their webs; in turn, the specificity of the web helps to explain the particularity of a rural region and its development trajectory. The web that we refer to is the pattern of interrelations, interactions, exchanges and mutual externalities within rural societies. This pattern embodies and describes the mutual interactions that take place between agriculture, the socioeconomic context in which it is embedded and the rural development process(es) within which it is a constituting element. In short: the web interlinks activities, processes, people and resources and, simultaneously, it shapes the ways in which they unfold. A central hypothesis underlying this text is that the development of such a web, contributes to the performance of regional rural economies. We hypothesize that the presence of a smoothly functioning and comprehensive web explains the performance of a regional economy, its comparative advantages, its competitiveness, innovativeness and sustainability, as well as the quality of life that it offers to its people. Important features of such webs are their density, multi-dimensionality, impacts and dynamics. Rurality and rural development The rural is the place where the ongoing encounter, interaction and mutual transformation (in short: the co-production) of man and living nature is located. This encounter occurs through a wide range of different practices, which are spatially and temporally bounded. These include, A Framework for Understanding Regional Rural Development 3 agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, rural tourism, rural sports and living in the countryside 3. Through co-production living nature is used, reproduced and transformed into a rich variety of often highly contrasting expressions. Particular landscapes, containing specific land-use and settlement patterns, specific levels of biodiversity, but also particular breeds and food products, are among the many outcomes. Co-production equally shapes and transforms the social-the rural has been characterized, from ancient times onwards, by particular institutions (such as the family enterprise, the centrality of crafts), relations (e.g. particular town-countryside relations), identities and subcultures. Within the framework of the rural both the social and the natural co-evolved in a specific, and often mutually reinforcing, way.

2004

The following country experts acted as lead experts for specific chapters. They supported the Advisory Body in preparing the questionnaires, which were the basis for the information gathered by the country experts, and the drafts of the following chapters: Edward Majewski: Situation and developments of farm economic performance and its effects on rural areas (chapter 3) Graham Dalton: Rural economies and their developments; in particular, labour market trends and off-farm economic development (chapter 4) Sophia Davidova: Rural infrastructure and services (chapter 5) Stephan Bojnec Developments in the agri-food sector with special emphasis on quality and sanitary issues and resulting effects on rural areas (chapter 6) Matthew Gorton: Agri-environmental policies and the impact of agriculture and agricultural policy on the rural environment (chapter 7) Martin Banse: Policy instruments (chapter 8) Plamen Mishev: Typology of rural areas (chapter 9) The following country experts contributed to this report: