ABSTRACT
Rural areas in the Europe of today are characterised by three key features. Firstly, they are subject to processes which originate beyond the immediate locale (Lowe, 1996), and they respond in contrasting ways to the demands and opportunities facing them. Marginal rural areas, usually characterised by unfavourable farm structures and relative economic isolation, are likely to respond less positively than more favoured areas, thereby becoming even more marginal. Inter-linkage between the global and the local is particularly evident in the agricultural sector where local production of foods may be directly affected by global agreements and by global supply and demand trends (Marsden et al., 1990). Secondly, rural areas are increasingly characterized by diversity-in populations, economies and lifestyles. Rural areas are increasingly sites of new economic activities (e.g. tourism and recreation) as well as agricultural production, a "post-productivist" diversity which is the result of the in-migration of new people (Murdoch and Marsden, 1994) and policy encouragement. Thirdly, and most importantly in the context of this paper, rural areas are increasingly seen as both sites of consumption and as commodities in themselves. An increasingly key aim of rural policy is to satisfy public demand for high quality rural environments. The establishment of regional imagery and the production and consumption of quality products are both integral ingredients in such development.
