Literally meaning ‘river area’, Rivierengebied is a rural area located in the heart of the Netherlands, characterized by the presence of two of the major national rivers
Endogeneity Novelty production Institutional arrangements Social Capital Sustainability Governance of markets
The degree to which a regional economy is grounded on regionally available and regionally controlled resources, the balance between endogenous and exogenous resources.
Regional capacity to continuously improve processes of production, products and patterns of cooperation on the basis of contextual knowledge, mostly initially elaborated outside the realm of codified or scientific knowledge
Sets of regulations, laws, norms or traditions that are shaped through human interactions and that are often manifested in an organizational structure
The ability to get things done as embodied in the ability of individu- als, groups, organizations and institutions to engage in networks, to cooperate and to use social relations for a common purpose Territorially-based development that redefines nature by re-em- phasizing food production and agro-ecology and that re-asserts the socio-environmental role of agriculture as a major agent in sustain- ing rural economies and cultures
The institutional capacity to control and strengthen markets and to construct new ones in relation to the specific organization of supply chains and the sharing of total value added
De Rijn and De Waal (see figure 6.1). The area has about 60.000 inhabitants, mostly living in villages and small settlements of a few thousand to a few hundred inhabit- ants. Utrecht, (289.000 inhabitants) Den Bosch (136.000), Arnhem (143.000), and Nijmegen (161.000) are nearby larger urban centers in the vicinity. In 2004 national landscape policy suggested delineating this rural area as a National Landscape. For different reasons, rural stakeholders and conventional farmers’ interests groups seriously opposed such a status. Regional organisations of tree nurseries and of glasshouse farmers, for instance, feared that a National Landscape status sooner or later would bring limitations for agricultural modernization opportunities and, as such, undermine their ‘level playing field’ conditions. In the early stages of delinea- tion proposals by the national government, their opposition succeeded in excluding areas with a concentration of avenue tree nursery firms and glasshouse vegetable production. It reflects regional farmers’ influence on rural policy design, as well as a clear distrust in alternative agricultural pathways. Indeed, regional farmers’ organi- zations continue primarily to advocate agricultural modernisation inspired ideas in their policy statements and project proposals (De Boomkwekerij, 2007; Fruit pact, 2008; LaanBoompact Betuwe, 2006; LTO-Noord 2005 and 2006).
Another source of opposition against the National Landscape status came from the urban administration of Tiel, the largest regional urban centre that initially is in- cluded in the National Landscape boundaries. This opposition especially addressed the ‘zero demographic growth’ part of National Landscape policy objectives, which does not correspond with the urban expansion plans of Tiel. This conflict has been resolved by excluding the municipality of Tiel completely in the final delineation of the National Landscape boundaries. Also, wider urban commitment to the National Landscape proposals as an instrument to protect, safeguard and strengthen specific rural amenities of Rivierengebied is hardly present. Nearby larger urban centres such as Arnhem, Utrecht and Den Bosch are historically oriented towards other rural zones in their direct vicinity. This means that Rivierengebied still largely lacks a direct urban interest in the governance of its rural amenities. Moreover, territory based ru- ral governance is complicated by the involvement of two different provincial admin- istrations and a total of 14 municipalities. This goes along with tensions in steering perceptions and inter-municipal rural policy coordination problems. Just to give one example: whereas the Province of Utrecht defines its role in rural policy processes increasingly as a facilitator that aims to de-centralize decision making as much as possible, the Province of Gelderland operates much more as a process manager that takes the lead in project development (Provincie Gelderland, 2007b).
In addition, territory based social capital is still largely absent due primarily to the persistence of sub-regional cultural and religious oriented identities (Esterik, 2003). The delineated National Landscape area follows primarily landscape criteria instead of shared values, beliefs and identities, which created rather peculiar problems. Re- gional rural tourism, for instance, is being promoted under the brand Rivierenland with the purpose to upscale and professionalize sub-regional forms of cooperation between rural tourism enterprises through active region branding (www.rivieren-
land.nl). Representatives of this public-private partnership are not pleased with the decision to name the National Landscape Rivierengebied. In their opinion this was a clear indication of policy actors’ ignoring of already existing rural network dynamics and lack of commercial thinking. Involved municipalities that had started to promote Rivierenland, sent a letter of complaint to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Nature, as initiator of the National Landscape Programme. yet, this turned out to be unsuccessful when other stakeholders started to oppose their suggestion to re- name Rivierengebied into Rivierenland.
The dominance of primarily sector-based action and thought in Rivierengebied is further reflected in the presence of agricultural innovation networks with an outspo- ken strategic orientation towards agriculture’s competiveness in international food and non-food markets. The Betuws Flower initiative, for instance, has been initiated by regional influential agro-clusters for fruit production, avenue tree nurseries and mushroom production, in cooperation with the Universities of Wageningen and Nijmegen. The initiative focusses on technological solutions for agri-environmental problems, food logistics and food marketing through a number of innovative proj- ects (Fruitpact, 20008). None of these projects, however, pays explicit attention to the valorisation of endogenous resources such as landscape and nature values. The economic strength of regional agricultural modernization forces can be further illus- trated by the following figures: the production costs per hectare of fruit of modern high yielding fruit varieties are about 5 times lower than those of the traditional standard fruit varieties as symbols of the typical Rivierengebied landscape. Agri- Figure 6.1 National Landscape
Rivierengebied
experts’ interest in multifunctionality is primarily oriented towards high-tech agri- culture. The aforementioned innovation programme, Betuws Flowers, for instance, intends to sustain regional glasshouse vegetable production through combinations with energy production, based on the exploration of solar and earth warmth. This is perhaps innovative from a sectoral perspective, but it also has different trade-offs in terms of preservation of landscape values. Similar tensions between agro-industrial logics and new rural functions pop up in scenario studies that imagine Rivierenge- bied without agricultural activity at all, transforming it into a rural area with moors and floating residences as novel responses to climate change and water manage- ment related policy challenges (Innovatienetwerk plattelandsontwikkeling, 2007; Bureau Waardenburg, 2004).
The overall variety of practices, ideas, tensions and conflicts characteristic of Rivie- rengebied are synthesized in Figure 6.2. This tries to visualize how the current over- all absence of mutually re-enforcing interactions and interrelations between rural web domains is partly to be explained by strongly present agricultural modernisa- tion forces that go along with a marginalization of endogenous resources, tensions in overall rural market governance and loss of opportunity to build upon available social capital. Together with an institutional focus on high-tech sustainability and sector based novelty production, these dominant rural web features transform into a limited place-specific capacity to oppose spatial fragmentation tendencies, to pre- serve and valorise rural distinctiveness and to come to the human, social and institu- tional agency as expected by national rural policy objectives for Rivierengebied.
Social Capital Endogeneity New ins4tu4onal frameworks Novel4es Crea4on of sustainability Governance of rural markets
Na#onal landscape status more a higher level policy construc#on then already a social-‐cultural and administra#ve reality
Primarily agri-‐ expert-‐, cluster-‐ and sector based innova#on networks
Selec#ve accessibility of RD funds; variety of ins#tu#onal barriers for lower level func#on integra#on Ins#tu#onal focus on
technological engineering and technology driven func#on integra#on Persistence of primarily sub regional-‐, sectoral-‐ and village based social capital Contras#ng strategic orienta#on of rural SMEs; limited territorial capacity to construct synergies between rural markets
Figure 6.2 Rural web frictions in Rivierengebied