Development Potentials of Rural Areas – The Case of Slovenia
Anton Perpar2012, Rural Development - Contemporary Issues and Practices
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Abstract
Rural areas in the European Union (27 member states) make up 91% of the territory and over 56% of the population (European Commission, 2008). They include a great variety of cultures, landscapes, natural environments, and economic activities that shape different rural identities. Farming and forestry remain crucial for land use and the management of natural resources in the EU's rural areas, and as a platform for economic diversification in rural communities. In Slovenia as well, rural areas represent a significant part of its space and society. Slovenia is one of the smallest European countries, sharing borders with Italy, Austria and Croatia. 2,050,189 people live in a land area of 20,273 km 2 , for an average population density of 101,1 inhabitants per km 2 (January 1st 2011). In 2010, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was 17,560€. Slovenia's location between the Alps, the Dinaric mountains, the Adriatic Sea and the Pannonian Plain is the reason for the country's diverse climate: there is a continental climate in central Slovenia, an Alpine climate in the northwest, and a sub-Mediterranean climate in the coastal area and its hinterlands. Consequently, landscapes and agricultural production conditions are also diverse, as are the cultural identities of individual rural areas. Based on the 2002 population census, rural areas make up more than 90% of the territory and are inhabited by 58% of the total population (Perpar, 2007). The Slovenian countryside is highly heterogenous, distinguished by various natural conditions and obstacles, and diversified demographic, economic, and social structures (Perpar & Kovačič, 2002). In recent decades rural areas have been exposed to many different changes and challenges, and have had to cope with a range of economic and societal needs, some of them new. Agricultural and forestry activities make rural areas the most important providers of food, and important contributors to the production of fibers and construction materials. Furthermore, rural areas are increasingly important as centers of energy production, from biomass and other renewable sources such as water resources, and have rich biodiversity and highly varied natural environments. They are also important from an economic aspect since new economic sectors are now developing in rural areas, such as rural tourism and other activities linked to their natural and cultural assets. But they are relatively isolated areas, removed from the centers of decision-making, economically and socially heterogeneous, largely dependent on natural resources, highly sensitive to exogenous modernization dynamics through linkages with urban areas, with often a kind of collective Rural Development-Contemporary Issues and Practices 284 sense of lasting crisis and a deterministic and fatalistic vision of the future. At the same time, rural areas are a specific type of complex system, a social-ecological system shaped by the relationships between ecological and human subsystems (Ambrosio-Albalá & Bastiaensen, 2010), and characterized by an intrinsic fragility in economic, environmental and social terms. Rural development is therefore a vitally important policy area worldwide. 1.1 Defining rural development, its aims and sustainability The concept of rural development has changed significantly during the past few decades. Until the 1970s, rural development was synonymous with agricultural development, and focused on increasing agricultural production (Fernando, 2008). This focus has been driven primarily by the interests of industrialization to extract surpluses from the agricultural sector to reinforce industrialization (Francks et al., 1999, as cited in Fernando, 2008). In the early 1980s the concept changed and now encompasses "concerns that go well beyond improvements in growth, income, and output". These concerns include an assessment of changes in the quality of life, broadly defined to include improvement in health and nutrition, education, environmentally safe living conditions, and reduction in gender and income inequalities (Chino, 2000, as cited in Fernando, 2008). Today there seems to be a universal consensus that the ultimate objective of rural development is to improve the quality of life of rural people. Rural development is therefore a continuous process facilitated by governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and different actors at the international, national and local levels, to sustain the growth of rural economies, improve the livelihoods of rural communities and to promote food security through the improvement of food supply, employment and income (Halwart et al., 2003). According to De Haas et al. (1997, as cited in Elands & Wiersum, 2001) rural development comprises two dimensions: contents and process. The contents of rural development concern the implementation of a large variety of measures aiming at improvement of the rural economy, the quality of life of the community, the landscape identity, the protection of the environment, and the attractiveness of rural areas (Elands & Wiersum, 2001; ECRD, 1996). Regarding the process dimension of rural development, a major aspect to be considered is the renewal of rural institutions, procedures and culture, and their impact on the rural space. Institutional renewal should enable innovating processes and practices to be applied to the use of the rural space. In this context, much attention is given to community participation and involvement in rural development efforts. Sustainable rural development can be defined as a process of multidimensional change affecting rural systems (Polidori & Romano, 1996, as cited in Pugliese, 2001). Economic growth, improvement of social conditions, and conservation of natural values are all equally important features in sustainable rural development, which should be induced according to a bottom-up approach, through the participation and sustainable use of local endogenous resources (environment, labor force, knowledge, patterns of production, consumption, and communication). Sustainable rural communities should be able to recognize and internalize exogenous chances of growth, i.e. markets, policies, and technology opportunities, properly integrating and balancing them with the need to preserve and enhance rural specificities and diversity (Long & Van der Ploeg, 1994, as cited in Pugliese, 2001).
