The concept of multi-functionality gained favour as being a potentially more accurate conceptualisation of the situation in agriculture and rural land use than post-productivism (Bjørkhaug & Richards, 2008; Cocklin, et al., 2006; Marsden & Sonnino, 2008; Wilson, 2002, 2008). However, the value of multi-functionality, as with the previous two concepts, is also debated (Burton & Wilson, 2006).
Multi-functionality of agriculture recognises that outputs from agriculture include not just marketable products, such as food and fibre, but also outputs that currently may not be able to be marketed; they are, however, valued by society. The exact nature of these outputs reflect societal values, but according to Marsden and Sonnino (2008, p. 422) include: ‘environmental amenities, agritourism, food quality, landscape management, preservation of biodiversity.’ Wilson (2002, p. 96) proposes that multi-functionality captures the ‘diversity, non-linearity and spatial
heterogeneity’ of the nature of the changes that are implied by a move away from productivism in the United Kingdom. However, it is also acknowledged that the concept is not clearly understood and inconsistently conceptualised (Marsden & Sonnino, 2008).
In Australia, multi-functionality has found favour as a descriptor of broad rural changes in land use and ownership, including according to Holmes (2006) peri-metropolitan land use,
conservation estates, and indigenous land. It has also been claimed as useful for analysing the changing tendencies of the Australian Government to interventions in the governing of farming through agri-environmental schemes and ongoing support for farmers suffering the extremes of continual droughts (Dibden & Cocklin, 2009).
Multi-functionality has received attention during World Trade Organisation negotiations (Dibden & Cocklin, 2009; Frame & Newton, 2007). The incorporation of multi-functionality into the discourse of trade negotiations at this level has no doubt contributed to its use and exploration in the academic literature. European countries (including the United Kingdom) argue strongly for the need to retain domestic protectionist policies for agriculture, to ensure that non-marketable
outputs are captured by the concept of multifunctional agriculture and are not diminished (Burrell, 2001; Potter & Tilzey, 2007). In the case of the European Union, these non-marketable outputs are considered to contribute to sustainable development, protection of the environment, the sustained vitality of rural areas, poverty alleviation, and food safety (Potter & Tilzey, 2007). This stand by the United Kingdom and other European countries is strongly argued against by
members of the Cairns Group of countries, which include New Zealand, Australia, and the United States of America (Burrell, 2001). The basis of their challenge is the assumption that land needs to be farmed, in order to ensure these outputs; hence, farming needs to be protected (Dibden, et al., 2009; Potter & Tilzey, 2007). The use of the term ‘multi-functionality’ within this
international context has clearly been politicised for the purpose not solely of ensuring the sustainable development of agriculture within and across national boundaries, but also to satisfy the complex agendas of different countries and their farming sectors.
Multi-functional agriculture was re-conceptualised in the 2000s as part of a broader agenda for sustainable rural development in the United Kingdom. A reason for the shift in perspective for agriculture in the United Kingdom is attributed, in part, to the Foot and Mouth and the BSE14 crises in the early 2000s (Marsden & Sonnino, 2008). Not only did these crises undermine
consumers’ trust and adversely impact farmers’ incomes, according to Marsden and Sonnino
(2008), these crises, along with swine fever, profoundly illustrated to the government and broader society the contribution farming and agriculture made to the broader well-being of those service and recreational sectors that also rely on and use the countryside. As an example, by the time the Foot and Mount Disease outbreak in 2001 had been eradicated, it was reported that:
more than six million farm animals had been slaughtered. The direct cost to the public sector has been estimated at over £3 billion, with the cost to the private sector estimated at over £5 billion (National Audit Office, 2002, cited by Ward, Donaldson, & Lowe, 2004, p. 291).
A condition of the revised multi-functionality was therefore defined as being an activity that provided income and employment opportunities to the agricultural sector, that created an agricultural sector that met the broader needs of society, and that also saw a ‘redefinition and
reconfiguration of rural resources in and beyond the farm enterprise’ (Marsden & Sonnino, 2008, p. 423).
Multi-functional agriculture is primarily presented as a normative model for sustainable agriculture and sustainable rural development. As with post-productivism, this concept has attracted criticism, principally because it fails to reflect the complex restructuring that has
occurred in agriculture and the ‘reality’ of agriculture today in different countries (Bjørkhaug &
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Richards, 2008; Burton & Wilson, 2006). But, as shown above, the concept is also critiqued because it is claimed that the multi-functional discourse has not been translated into technologies
of government or ‘real’ change on farm.
In spite of the criticism of the concepts, the lack of accord between the macro-level depictions of agricultural change captured by the productivist/post-productivist and multi-functionality
conceptualisations and that of farmers have received little attention from scholars.