RURAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY

Family Farm and Rural Development Policy: Scotland vs. Spain

Family Farm and Rural Development Policy: Scotland vs. Spain

Introduction

Despite the increasing commercialization of agriculture and processing of a 'lifestyle' in a business, agriculture continues to be mainly practiced in family units in Spain and Scotland (Slee et al, 2001, p. 99). The persistence of this type of agriculture is a subject of debate, but there is no doubt one factor in survival of the family farm is the structure of the workforce. Family farms take advantage of their ability to use their own manpower availability during periods of economic crisis or high seasonal demand (Hutson, 1987, p. 45). This provides them with a security system essentially inaccessible to non-family farms. The family labor is one of the important factors that determine the persistence of family farms.

However, resistance to change of family farms does not mean that their structures are completely inflexible. The combination of increasing mechanization of agriculture, a decline in the profitability of farms and a change in the social aspirations of the children of farmers led to a gradual evolution of the traditional family farms. Due to improved economic opportunities available to them, children of farmers are more likely to leave the farm to move to non-agricultural sectors - that is the case in the United Kingdom and d other industrialized countries such as Sweden (Villa, 1999, p. 63).This process is breaking down the traditional succession from father to son in the family farms and reduce the flexibility of labor, which had been one of the major advantages of family farms. The considerable difference in flexibility in operations is due to the different structures of labor between farms with or without heirs, or whether they are based on voluntary work of children in and out. This change in structure of labor takes place in a context of great change in public policy. In particular, the imminent introduction of the Single Farm Payment is an important step in the evolution of European policies and breaks with the tradition of subsidies linked to production. The objective of this essay is to compare and contrast “Family Farm and Rural Development Policy” of Spain and Scotland.

Discussion

Family Farm and Rural Development Policy and Practice in Scotland

The assistance of the European Union for agriculture has been for years, focusing on subsidies based on production - that is to say, subsidies for the number of hectares cultivated and the number of animals elevated. The use of production subsidies was identified later as being responsible for the overproduction and intensive forms of agriculture causing environmental damage - this is added to the heavy weight of these subsidies on the budget of the Union European. To solve these problems, MacSharry introduced in 1992 a reform of the CAP, pursued by the reform of Agenda 2000 in 1999. But Winter (2000, p. 71) considers that these reforms were not sufficient to solve these problems in the agricultural sector and that more radical reforms were needed.

Accordingly, the Council of Ministers of Agriculture of the European Union has ratified a new CAP reform ...