Pathways towards applied policy integration for sustainable agricultural systems: workshop proceedings

Abstract

Change in agricultural landscape systems is driven by a combination of external driving forces and local dynamics. Structural developments in agriculture and urbanisation processes of different kinds are of particular importance. Their combined effects are expressed in diverse ways within different types of landscape system and policy environment, and are always mediated through the reactions and actions of local communities and individual agents (particularly farmers). A policy challenge in all agricultural systems is to practically integrate at the farm and landscape scale the consequences of different domains, types and levels of public policy, in particular those derived from the global market agenda (including agricultural policies), and those from the sustainability agenda (including environmental policy and spatial planning). Local agents (farmers, managers, and planners) need to reconcile these imperatives, and it is a prerequisite of successful policy implementation that local agency is understood as a policy target and addressed in policy design. The ‘Pathways’ Copenhagen workshop aimed to progress understanding of ways to enhance local landscape scale integration of global policy agendas. It brought together international experts, policy analysts and emerging researchers from ten OECD member states. A point of departure was a recent text: ‘Globalisation and Agricultural Landscape: Change Patterns and Policy Trends in Developed Countries’ (Primdahl and Swaffield (eds) 2010 Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-51789-8). That text presented an analytical approach to understanding the intersection of global policy agendas within local landscapes, and included a range of case studies of agricultural landscape change and management in OECD member states with varying levels of producer support. The presented papers at the Copenhagen workshop reported here range in focus from specific examinations of ‘best’ landscape practices in specific case study areas, to more broad ranging reviews of ways to enhance the outcomes of agricultural landscape management, for example by changing the logic of the policy narratives that underpin agricultural production.