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This article argues that we know little about how small farmers in post-communist Europe survive and even grow while having little access to credit markets. In approaching small farmers, this paper builds on ideas of self-provisioning, contending that the tendency among small farmers is not one of growth towards and through economies of scale, but one of internalising and de-monetising costs, by growing in order to control upstream and downstream links in the value chain. It asks what is it that makes self-provisioning possible in two post-communist regions (located in Romania and Ukraine) and identifies various assets in the smallholders' environments, such as most importantly a diverse scene of intermediaries supplying smallholders with cash incomes. The implication of the research is that the existence of these assets is crucial for the smallholders' survival and growth, and these assets should be valued accordingly rather than dismissed in favour of integrating smallholders into modern, retailer-dominated, value chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 1990s Greece became one of the prime destination countries for the migrant peoples of the collapsing regimes of the Balkan and Eastern European countries, experiencing, thus, a historical reversal of the massive exodus, in the 1950s and 1960s, of Greeks to the labour markets of Germany, Australia and the USA. This historical reversal seems to identify a pattern that is common to the Southern European countries. Over the last ten years, immigrant population has grown to attain approximately one tenth of the population of Greece. This development occurs at a time when pressures are being exerted on agricultural incomes following the reform of the CAP and subsequent evidencing of the first consequences of market liberalization in the context of a globalizing international economy. This paper aims at analyzing and interpreting the main findings of an empirical research programme on the economic and social implications of migrant settlement and employment in rural Greece. The research was carried out in three paradigmatic regions of the country: a) in a mountainous, less favoured region, b) in a region with dynamic agriculture, and c) in an insular region of agricultural and tourist development. The paper draws from a qualitative study of administrators and opinion leaders. It is divided into four parts: the first part presents the main elements of migration in rural Southern Europe in the frame of what is known as the South European model of migration. The second part discusses migration towards Greece and reviews research work relating to rural migration. With reference to methodology and the main research hypotheses, the third part presents the analysis of empirical findings concentrating on the importance of migrant labour for the operation of the farm and rural restructuring followed by a discussion of the position and role of migrants in rural society and development. The final part summarizes the main conclusions of this analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homelessness remains a neglected component of rural studies in Britain and Europe. Research has tended to skirt around the subject, focusing either on groups in need located within rural housing markets or on those people experiencing rural poverty living within conventional properties. In this paper we want to connect homelessness with rurality by drawing on key findings from recently completed research on rural homelessness in England. We want to make connections between homelessness and rurality in two main ways. Firstly, given the limited knowledge base on rural homelessness, we set out the overall extent and profile of homelessness in rural England based on an analysis of unpublished official statistics. We also highlight how homelessness in rural England is bound up with a great deal of spatial unevenness and suggest that it is through localized investigation that important connections between homelessness and rurality can be best understood. In the second part of the paper, we draw on findings from local research conducted in two rural districts in Gloucestershire to provide a range of evidence that points to the significance of the local spaces of rural homelessness. In particular, this work demonstrates the ways in which local structures of housing provision and socio-cultural and political processes in these districts impact on the nature and experiences of rural homelessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an attempt has been made to evaluate the contents volumes I to X of Sociologia Ruralis (1960-1970), with the understanding that only the (75) English written papers are being reviewed. The main starting points have been derived from Article 4 of the Constitution of the European Society for Rural Sociology. After having proposed a number of critical remarks on the subject that have been dealt with in the papers concerned, a tentative evaluation has been made of the practical, theoretical, and methodologic relevance of these papers. In the final section, some ideas are suggested which might be used in order to remove several shortcomings brought to light in to previous sections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some recent analyses of alternative agro-food networks (AAFNs) and claims that these innovative modes of food provisioning are emblematic of a new rural development paradigm in Western Europe. A political-economic critique of the territorialised, farm-centric value added strategies underlying these claims suggests that this characterisation is overdrawn and premature. The neglect of the consumption side of the rural development equation also argues for a more modest assessment of AAFNs and their paradigmatic potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of social exclusion may be used to connect the experiences of individuals and social groups to broader social and economic processes (linking ‘biography’ to ‘history’). This paper draws on recent empirical studies of young people in rural areas of Britain and other European countries to illustrate how social exclusion may operate in rural areas, particularly in the transition from education to employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper an effort is made to explain some of the dynamics behind evolving rural social systems in terms of their comparatively smaller or greater openness or closure. It is argued that rural social systems can be called comparatively open or dosed in various respects : (a) factually, formally and/or normatively; (b) to the outside and/or to the inside; (c) socio-structurally and/or culturally. The author applies these distinctions in a discussion about the difficult position of many social systems in present-day rural Europe between the extremes of complete isolation and complete external integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, agro-environmental measures are introducing a social control on agricultural practices in several European countries. Focusing chiefly on the French case, but with cross-national comparisons, this paper analyses the development of ambiguous social concern about environmental degradation linked to farming activities. Several causes are examined: the crisis of the productive agricultural model, renewed urban pressure on countryside uses and overall development of environmental anxieties. The article stresses the fact that farmers are given the ambivalent part of being at the same time damaging and managing the environmental qualities of the countryside. In conclusion, it questions the durability of public support to a policy based on local compromises and leading to greater territorial differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restructuring of agriculture is occurring throughout Europe. In the West the period of productivism and protectionism is coming to an end as agricultural policy responds to both international pressure for greater freedom of trade and domestic concerns for the environmental effects of modern intensive farming systems. In central and eastern Europe the search is for new forms of agricultural enterprise that facilitate the switch to a market economy without threatening a dislocation of food supplies. Against this background the paper maps out an agenda of issues confronting the student of rural affairs in the post-productivist era in both food production and environmental stewardship. It draws attention to the changing functions of the state in helping to manage the economic and social restructuring and their environmental impacts [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The working wife is becoming the norm in European society. For some, the need to find work outside the home is purely an economic one but for many women, it is suggested that paid employment also answers needs for company, recognition and status and enhances the woman's sense of independence and self worth Farmers' wives are part of society and therefore exposed to its norms and sanctions This paper argues that farm women will experience the same needs as other women for earnings, financial independence, association with others, status and self fulfilment but that remoteness, lack of suitable work for women in rural areas, needs of the farm business and sanctions against farmers' wives working elsewhere may deter them The balance of motives may change from predominantly financial on small farms to predominantly social and personal on large farms. A review of the literature on off farm employment of farm women offers some support for these hypotheses [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents summary of various articles published in the July 2005 issue of the journal "Sociologia Ruralis." One of the article states that the Bulgarian irrigation facilities deteriorated to a large extent and no longer meet the needs of the new landowner and agricultural production structure. The Bulgarian government therefore enacted two new laws to encourage collective action and to establish water user associations in order to achieve sustainable water management. Another article reports that governments across Central and Eastern Europe have enacted agri-environmental legislation over the past decade. This paper explores how the legislation has played out in practice, using property as an analytical lens to examine the social dynamics surrounding agri-environmental problems. The findings highlight the discrepancy between the legal rights accorded to land owners and their rights-in-practice. Land owners contest the constraints imposed by agri-environmental legislation through strategies ranging from avoidance to open violation.

In the article, the authors presents a rejoinder to a comment by Howard Newby on their article in which they had compared the North American and European journals of rural sociology. The study raises two points, which the authors feel must be clarified lest their work be misunderstood. The first concerns the nature of that research and the second concerns the role of ontological assumptions in sociological research. The authors mentioned that their study of the two rural sociology journals was motivated by reflections on their own intellectual activity, and the content analysis of the journals carried out by them was not a sociological investigation. The purpose of their content analysis was to provide an understanding of the characteristics of the two journals from which an explanatory project might proceed. The authors add that Newby's depiction of their work as non-sociological and positivist does underscore an irony. They clarifies that their paper, like many others, does not go beyond the limits of assumptions and data.

The article presents several abstracts of research papers published in the July 3, 2001 issue of the journal "Sociological Ruralis." It discusses the cultural economics in the rural areas of Europe. The paper "Transnational Co-operation Between Rural Areas: Elements of a Political Economy of European Union Rural Development," by Christopher Ray considers the significance of the phenomenon in terms of the emergence of a rural development system. "Exploring the Dimensions of Culture Economies in Rural West Wales," by Moya Kneafsey, Brian Ilbery and Tim Jenkins, interrogates the nature and extent of the culture economy as a force for rural development in West Wales. The discussion draws on empirical material from research into four different product sectors, namely, specialty beef and lamb, organic fruit, vegetables and meat, specialty cheese and artisanal crafts. Of particular significance is the research paper "Governing the Boundaries of Viability Economic Expertise and the Production of the Low-Income Farm Problem in Australia," by Vaughan Higgins which discusses how economic expertise assumed prominence as key authorities in constituting previous collectivist forms of assistance as irrational, and in linking the future viability of Australian agriculture to the theories and practices of agricultural economists.

Rural development practices are found throughout Europe and cover a wide range of different types of activity. At first sight there does not seem to be much similarity between these different practices. This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis of some 30 cases of rural development from the different tracts of European countryside studied in the first phase of the impact research programme. The paper summarizes several of the communalities that were revealed in the analysis and goes on to consider differences that may be relevant to policy, especially in relation to the levels of socio-economic impact generated by rural development practices in terms of extra income and employment. By means of clustering sets of cases according to regional and farm level impact data, a number of underlying factors in successful rural development and its translation into socio-economic impacts are identified. Important factors relate the dissemination of activities by integrating new participants and repetition by others, the unleashing of synergy effects within clusters of compatible and mutually reinforcing rural development activities,and the construction of regional 'protected spaces' within the dominant technological regime that favour rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of reports and papers about agriculture in Europe. They include "Spanish Rural Society in Transition," by Manuel Pérez Yruela, "Agriculture, Rural Society and the Land Question in Portugal," by Fernando Oliveira Baptista and "The European and Local Context of Greek Family Farming," by Dimitris Goussios.