Drivers of countryside change Module 14 final report

by
R.H. Haines-Young & Sandra McNally
Contact: Roy Haines-Young (Roy.Haines-young@nottingham.ac.uk). University of Nottingham, Department of Geography, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD

Contents

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Executive Summary

• Introduction
• Work programme
• Rural sustainability and countryside change
• Agriculture as a driver of countryside change
• Forestry as a driver of countryside change
• Next steps

Introduction

1. An understanding of the drivers of countryside change is essential if we are to interpret the growing body of information that is becoming available about the rural environment. In this study we focus on Countryside Survey 2000 (CS2000), and explore what it can contribute to our understanding of the social and economic factors that have influenced the character of the wider countryside during the 1990s. We also look to the future and ask what kinds of data and analysis might be relevant for understanding current trends and policy directions.

2. This work has been commissioned at a time when the data collection phase of CS2000 has been completed. These data are now being analysed and the first results of the survey will be published in November 2000. This project seeks to assist and extend these activities.

3. The specific aims of the project are to:

1. i Support the presentation of the first outputs from Countryside Survey 2000 with a detailed review and analysis of the social, economic and policy drivers relevant to understanding the patterns of change detected since the earlier surveys; and,

2. ii Shape DETR's long term research strategy in relation to the social, economic and policy drivers of countryside change, so that more effective and integrated policies for achieving sustainable development can be achieved.

1. As these aims indicate, the initial focus of the work is on the immediate outputs from CS2000. However, as recommended in the CS2000 Scoping Study, work such as this is needed to look at Countryside Survey in the wider context of countryside policy. In order to realise the value of these data we need to understand not only what they can tell us directly, but also how we can link them to other sources of information to gain a wider view of changes in rural areas.

Work Programme

5. This study is made up of three substantive modules. The first concerns the general issues of Rural Change and Sustainability. This element of the work develops a conceptual framework in which the general socio-economic trends and pressures in rural areas can be understood. The outputs provide information on the changing policy context in which the outputs of CS2000 must be set, and make recommendations on how these data can be used in relation to DETR's broader research needs.

6. The other two modules, which focus on agriculture and forestry, have been designed to examine some of the general themes covered in the first module in greater depth. By reviewing changes in each of these sectors the work explores how we might pick up the consequences of these drivers in the outputs from CS2000. In the long term, the goal is to focus on how other research or other data on agriculture and forestry can be used alongside CS2000 to develop and broaden its policy relevance.

7. The scope of this study was confined to the agriculture and forestry because of the limited time available for this work. Although these two drivers are amongst the most important in terms of understanding countryside change, it must be recognised that there are other issues that also need to be considered in the long term. The relationship between socio-economic and policy processes and changing pollution loads on terrestrial habitats and freshwater ecosystems, for example, must be an important area of future work.

8. In order to test the robustness of our findings, we presented the results of our reviews and some of our initial ideas for further work at a seminar attended by policy advisors, researchers and academics. They were invited on the basis of their interest in the socio-economic and policy issues that are relevant to understanding countryside change. Their comments and ideas have helped to shape the outcome of this study.

Rural Sustainability and Countryside Change

9. A key policy driver to emerge during the 1990s has been that of sustainability. This study traces the uptake and development of the concept at both EU and UK levels during the last decade. The analysis suggests that while the concept has been a major factor shaping environmental and other economic and social policies that are relevant to the countryside, the extent to which the concept has resulted in major changes in character of our rural areas is more limited. In the context of this study, the degree to which such policies have impacted on patterns of land cover and the stock and quality of habitats in the wider countryside is unclear. A major factor was that many of the institutional changes that arose in relation to the sustainability debate took place too late in the decade for any widespread effects to be detectable.

10. Our review suggests, however, that with the evolution of more holistic, socially based thinking about rural sustainability, and the development of new institutional structures within the UK, there is a need to broaden our approach to monitoring countryside change. While CS2000 currently provides an insight into ecological change, we suggest that in the future such work must be better integrated with other sources of information about the structure and dynamics of rural communities if we are to gain an understanding of the broader drivers of change.

11. The review of rural sustainability and countryside change traces several key, inter-linked developments that suggest that we need to rethink the role of studies such as CS2000:

• A shift away from a paradigm in which policies towards farming are seen the main vehicle for rural development, to one in which the countryside is seen as a 'rural as opposed to an agricultural space'.

• Growing emphasis on the importance of 'locality', and recognition of the need to target specific problems in specific areas rather than focusing effort on individual sectors.

• The need to promote bottom-up, community-based, voluntary approaches to rural development, rather than the imposition of 'solutions' from outside.

12. Detailed consideration of how the impact of policies towards agriculture and forestry can be explored using CS2000 data are considered separately in later sections of this Report. In the context of testing more general ideas about rural development using these data the specific recommendation that arose from the review of rural sustainability was that a much better understanding of the rural context of the individual CS2000 survey squares is required.

13. If we are to gain an insight into the causes of change recorded by CS2000 and any future surveys of its kind, then we need to understand the position of the survey squares in both 'environmental' and 'rural' space. It is suggested, therefore, that further work is needed to characterise the survey squares in relation to different dimensions of rurality.

14. Such work would potentially enable CS2000 data to be stratified in ways other than that involving the Land Class System, so that the character and dynamics of the landscape mosaic could be described in relation to a wide range of models of rural development. It is suggested that social and demographic information about the local area in which the sample square occurs could be used for this work.

15. The availability of the 2001 Census will provide an important opportunity for a long-term study of social and demographic change to be made. Earlier census information can be used to characterise change up to 1990. The work could also draw upon other rural information, such as DETRs Land Use Change Statistics in England, to characterise the dynamics of the land cover in and around the survey squares.

16. The CS field survey squares were selected in relation to an environmental stratification of GB and so they may not be representative of the range of social and economic conditions associated with the wider countryside. Such work will however, place the survey data in context and enable the relationships between environmental change and these other drivers to be better understood. It may also enable new indicators of sustainability to be developed.

17. It is further recommended that such work is developed in relation to any follow-up socio-economic survey of farm enterprises within the survey squares (see below) so that a more complete picture can be established of the rural community and its economy in the areas covered by Countryside Survey.

Agriculture as a Driver of Countryside Change

18. The work within this project that focused on agriculture as a driver of countryside change consisted of a number of elements, namely:

1. To include all the primary data collected during the Processes of Countryside Change Study in the CS2000 database;

2. To review Processes of Countryside Change Study and the possibilities for further analysing these data in the context of CS2000.

3. To review the changing structure of agriculture 1990-98 and the possible impacts on the stock and condition of the different land cover and habitat types in the wider countryside;

4. To review the use of MAFF June Census at the Local Authority and District level and Farm Business Survey (FBS) data, and consider how they might help with the detailed interpretation of CS2000 results; and,

5. To develop recommendations in relation to the agricultural driver, both in the context of CS2000 and DETR's wider research programme.

19. Following the recommendations of the CS2000 Scoping Study, it was proposed that the data acquired by Potter and Lobley (1996), as part of their Processes of Countryside Change Study, be integrated with other information being brought together in the CS2000 database, and that CEH become their custodians. We considered such work to be important because it provided the basis for further analysis of the survey data collected in 1998. The data from Potter and Lobley's survey are now part of the CS2000 database.

20. In order to develop a programme for further work in relation to the agricultural driver, analyses of information from the June Census and Farm Business Survey (FBS) were made. This work formed the basis of our recommendations in this area.

21. Some commentators have described the general changes that occurred in the structure of British agriculture during the 1980s as one of geographical 'polarisation'. Although the term is often used imprecisely, it involves the idea that we observed during this period the increasing regional specialisation of farming activities. In part the process was manifested by reduction in area and number of mixed farms and the increasing dominance of intensive arable farming in those areas of the east and south east of England, where the economic returns from such activities were most profitable. The structure of farming in such areas is contrasted with that of the west and north, where mixed farming gave way to more exclusively pasture-based systems. We asked: To what extent has such polarisation been maintained and continued during the 1990s?

22. In the analysis presented it is argued that the pattern of spatial differentiation of farming activities has been maintained, but the processes of polarisation that typified the 1980s had been overlain in England¹ at least, by those of :

• Consolidation, that is the tendency towards fewer, larger farms.

• Specialisation, that is the tendency for farms to concentrate on a narrower range of activities so that labour requirements and other inputs may be easier to predict and control.

• Diversification, that is the tendency for farm enterprises to develop other sources of income from on-farm, non-agricultural activities and off-farm sources.

23. It is suggested that although these changes indicate some restructuring in the agricultural industry, there is little evidence that they have been associated with any significant lessening in management intensity. Indeed, there are some signs that the consolidation and specialisation processes have combined to concentrate such management pressures in some areas, despite the development of policies to encourage better environmental practice in farming.

24. The material we present in this report provides useful contextual information in which the initial results of CS2000 can be reported. Table 1 sets out our recommendations for further more detailed analysis that can be made in relation to this important driver of countryside change. These recommendations allow the hypotheses about the processes of 'polarisation', 'consolidation', 'specialisation', 'diversification', 'management intensity' and 'environmental practice' to be tested more rigorously and their environmental consequences explored in detail using data from CS2000.

25. The Table identifies work that could be undertaken in the short-term, that is once CS2000 have been launched in November 2000. We recommend that such work be taken forward as part of any post-launch research programme, such as that which followed CS1990.

26. Table 1 also identified work of a more long-term nature. Our review, and feedback from the workshop held to comment on the outputs from this study suggests that there is considerable justification and support for a socio-economic survey within the CS2000 sample squares. This work would clearly build on Potter and Lobley's Processes of Countryside Change Study. However, we recommend that its scope be extended to include a wider range of factors affecting rural areas. In Table 1 we describe only those issues related to agriculture. In the next section we consider how such a survey could be developed to take better account of forestry.

 Forestry as a Driver of Countryside Change

27. Throughout the 1990s it was the policy of successive governments to support the extension of the woodland area. The initial aim was to afforest 33,000 ha a year, including 12,000 ha a year under the Farm Woodland Scheme. These have been expressed in terms of longer-term targets by the subsequent Rural White Papers.

28. An important driver of this policy shift was the problem of surplus agricultural land in Europe. The 2nd Report of the Agriculture Committee of the House of Commons reported that there could be anything from one million to five million hectares of surplus agricultural land by 2015 (House of Commons 1990). It went on to suggest that "the most significant alternative land use in the next twenty years is likely to be forestry" and that there was now "the scope, if not the necessity, for a far greater emphasis on the role of woodlands and forestry in the process of rural development" (House of Commons 1990 xv). The process of change is, however, likely to vary regionally with, for example, conversion in Wales being limited by the need to retain the small area of high quality agricultural land found here.

29. These ideas about the perceived surplus of agricultural land meant that one of the principal locational factors affecting forestry throughout the twentieth century, that afforestation should only take place on 'unimproved land' of low agricultural value, was no longer of paramount importance. This change underlay many of the detailed policy changes that took place through the 1990s.

Table 2: Expected trends and potential analyses using CS2000 for the forestry driver

30. In the 1980s there had been there had been a resurgence of interest in the management of broadleaved woodland. This renewed interest continued through the 1990s, which moreover saw an increased emphasis on the management of all types of woodland in the interests of nature conservation, landscape, recreation, shooting and the provision of public access. The shift in aims of management reflected changing demands of the public and was reinforced by a range of new and modified policies introduced by the Forestry Commission, English Nature, the Countryside Commission and their successor organisations. This shift has affected, to differing degrees, all types of woodland owner from large commercial forestry concerns through to the owners of small woodlands.

31. The physical manifestations of this general shift in management aims included subtle changes to the size and shape of individual woodland stands; changes in the mixtures of species established; changes in establishment techniques, with a move away from plantations towards the use of natural regeneration; and changes in thinning regimes. We consider that several of these changes could be explored using CS2000 data, and in Table 2 we set out our recommendations for further work using these data.

32. In addition to the analytical opportunities set out in Table 2, we also recommended that the analysis of CS2000 data be undertaken in conjunction with the analysis of the Forestry Commission's National Inventory of Woodland Trees (NIWT). The latter is a particularly useful source of information on the structural properties of woodland and their use, which can be used alongside CS2000 to make a more complete analysis of the qualitative characteristics of the woodlands at national and regional scales.

33. Finally, we considered how the analysis of woodland characteristics within the CS sample squares might be improved. It was noted that over the decade there has been a marked trend for woodland ownership to become increasingly distinct from farm ownership. More woodland areas are in the possession of specialist organisations such as the Woodland Trust, wildlife and other conservation trusts, as well as small private owners. It was recommended therefore that, if a follow up study to the Processes of Countryside Change study is undertaken, then its scope should be extended to include interviews with all woodland owners in a survey square, as well as farmers. This would enable changes within farm woodlands to be separated from those taking place in other types of woodland, and a better understanding of the factors shaping woodlands to be developed.

Next Steps

34. Countryside Survey 2000 has not been designed to look explicitly at the causes of change. Rather, its purpose is to describe change in terms of a large number of important ecological features associated with the wider countryside. The survey data can, nevertheless, give us some important insights into some of the drivers of change, particularly where it can be combined with other information.

35. This study focused mainly on socio-economic and policy issues relevant to the agricultural and forestry sectors. Although other types of driver have to be considered, it is clear that even taking these two areas alone, there is scope for further, more detailed analysis of CS2000 information.

36. In the short term it would be valuable to explore how the key trends in agriculture and forestry agricultural and forestry that occurred during the 1990s are picked up in the results of CS2000. The extent to which one may make a 'read-across' with other information sources such as the June Census, the Farm Business Study and the National Woodland Inventory, for example, would clearly be helpful for the CS2000 user community. Not only would such work inform users about the types of change detected by the Survey. It would also help us define a wider range of indicators that could be used to describe the condition of the wider countryside that would be useful for policy purposes. We recommend that such work can be taken forward in the short to medium term, once CS2000 has been launched in November 2000.

37. In the longer term it is also clear that there is a strong justification for undertaking a follow-up to the socio-economic survey carried out in the CS sample squares in 1993. Although an important element would be to collect information about the farm enterprises within the survey squares, we have argued that any further work should taken in a wider range of issues that those affecting agriculture. We recommend that all types landowners and managers are interviewed. The goal should be to build up a much better understanding of the rural context of the CS sample squares, and hence the socio-economic and policy factors likely to shape change within them.

38. CS2000 is the fourth of its kind. With each successive survey the scope of the work programme has been enlarged and its concepts refined, to ensure that the outputs are relevant to current science and policy needs. This study has shown that the framework in which we seek to understand countryside change is evolving rapidly. Previous Countryside Surveys have been based on a rigorous understanding of the environmental setting in which the survey data have been collected. As we look to the future, it is clear that we also need to understand more completely the social and economic situation in which that change is occurring.

39. Agriculture and forestry will remain important drivers of countryside change. Current trends suggest, however, that many other factors, including the growth of rural industry, social and demographic change, and the relationship between town and country, will control the stock and quality of the habitats and associated landscape features that make up the wider countryside. This study, and the work we suggest should follow from it, will provide the foundation for helping us define our future monitoring needs. Ultimately, it may help us gain a better insight into the environmental consequences of these other, important socio-economic drivers of countryside change.

1 Because of the limited time available for this desk study, analysis was confined to June Census and FBS data for England, because the former were available at a disaggregated, district level from another project. National level information about Scotland and Wales was included, where relevant. Clearly, the detailed regional analysis provided for England could be extended to these other country units in any follow-up work.

2 SSR= Standard Statistical Region

3 PCC=Processes of Countryside Change Study; PCC Typology = Typology of farmers defined by Potter and Lobley (1996).

4 CSEZ = Countryside Survey 2000 environmental zone.

5 Categorisation of  farm types used in June Census and FBS