ABSTRACT
Agriculture in the European Union (EU) is currently experiencing a transition phase. Since the MacSharry reform of 1992, traditional agricultural policy, with its focus on high levels of price support, is to an increasing extent being replaced by a system of lowered price support and compensating direct income payments (e.g. single farm payment). These payments are also used to support environmental, wildlife and landscape objectives. Alongside the traditional agricultural model, which is oriented on the production of marketable and cheap food, a new paradigm arises in which agriculture is seen as contributing to multifunctional land use (for details of this multifunctional ‘European model’ of agriculture see European Commission (1997) and Potter and Burney (2001)). The idea that agriculture has to broaden its scope in order to survive economic hardship (and provide more services to society) is not that new. In the 1980s debate had already begun about the need for agriculture to diversify its operations and choose a strategy of pluriactivity. Farmers were eagerly looking for the new ‘saving crop’ and experimenting with new activities. This process was not particularly successful. The most promising form of pluriactivity turned out to be off-farm employment (Bateman and Ray, 1994, p6; Benjamin, 1995, p331). What is relatively new is that since the 1990s policy has gradually shifted to support this new direction.
