Chapter 5. The Contribution of Agriculture to Rural Development in France: Role for Public Action in Supporting Joint Production of Public Goods Required for the Development of Rural Areas?
Using selected case studies, representing the full diversity of French rural areas, this paper indicates the degree to which agricultural and Agri-food activities contribute to the development of rural areas, essentially in the environmental, but alsoin the social field. More precisely, using regional-economy models, estimations of direct and indirect jobs created by rural activities (and of the upstream and downstream linkages) shows the great diversity of the basic activities in French rural areasand consequently the integrated character of rural development. Whereas in certain areas, agricultural and Agri-food activities remain the primary basic activities, in other, more aesthetically attractive areas, the sectors related to the residential and recreational functions play the central role. What is more, agriculture provides agricultural goods and, in the process, environmental and territorial services that are indispensable for the development of the other rural activities, particularly in the more attractive rural areas. After describing these services in a few areas, the strong interdependence between the agricultural and Agri-food sectors on the one hand, and the tourism and residential sectors on the other, will be shown, via the notionof a set (or basket) of territorial-based goods and services. In fact, these French case studies tend to show that the consistency of agricultural and rural development policies is improved when public action encourages, first, the continued existence ofpublic goods provided by agriculture (some of which are purely public goods and could be financed by public funds over the long term), and secondly, the emergence of co-ordinated networks of actors capable of enhancing the value, via the market, of someof the services provided, e.g. by developing baskets of territorial-based goods and services in which each product is worth more than would be the case were it to be sold separately. In this case, the financing intended to enhance local co-ordination can be temporary.
展开▼
