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Multifunctional agriculture in policy and practice? A comparative analysis of Norway and Australia

January 2008
Journal of Rural Studies 24(1)

DOI:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2007.06.003

Authors:

Carol Richards

The University of Queensland

Hilde Bjørkhaug

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Ideals of productivist agriculture in the Western world have faded as the unintended consequences of intensive agriculture and pastoralism have contributed to rural decline and environmental problems. In Norway and Australia, there has been an increasing acceptance of the equal importance of social and environmental sustainability as well as economic sustainability. Alongside this shift is a belief that primary production needs to move away from an intensive, productivist-based agriculture to one that may be defined as post-productivist. In this paper, we argue that the dualism of productivism and post-productivism as concepts on agricultural policy regimes are too simplistic and discuss whether multifunctional agriculture is a better concept for a comparison of rural primary production at two extreme points of the scale, the market-oriented, liberalistic Australian agriculture and the market-protected small-scale Norwegian agriculture. We argue that multifunctionality in Australia rates relatively weakly as an ideology or policy and even less as a discourse or practice and hence is situated toward a ‘weak’ end of a continuum of a level of multifunctional agriculture. In Norwegian agriculture, multifunctional agriculture has thrived within a protectionist setting with the support of the public, the state and agricultural actors. In this sense it is very clearly a policy, practice and discourse that aims to preserve and conserve rural spaces, the cultural landscape, the farming way of life and food safety. Norway is as such situated toward a ‘strong’ end of a continuum of a level of multifunctional agriculture.

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Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111

Multifunctional agriculture in policy and practice? A comparative

analysis of Norway and Australia

Hilde Bjørkhaug

, Carol Ann Richards

b,

Centre for Rural Research, Trondheim, Norway

School of Social Science, The Unviersity of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia

Abstract

Ideals of productivist agriculture in the Western world have faded as the unintended consequences of intensive agriculture and

pastoralism have contributed to rural decline and environmental problems. In Norway and Australia, there has been an increasing

acceptance of the equal importance of social and environmental sustainability as well as economic sustainability. Alongside this shift is a

belief that primary production needs to move away from an intensive, productivist-based agriculture to one that may be deﬁned as post-

productivist. In this paper, we argue that the dualism of productivism and post-productivism as concepts on agricultural policy regimes

are too simplistic and discuss whether multifunctional agriculture is a better concept for a comparison of rural primary production at two

extreme points of the scale, the market-oriented, liberalistic Australian agriculture and the market-protected small-scale Norwegian

agriculture. We argue that multifunctionality in Australia rates relatively weakly as an ideology or policy and even less as a discourse or

practice and hence is situated toward a ‘weak’ end of a continuum of a level of multifunctional agriculture. In Norwegian agriculture,

multifunctional agriculture has thrived within a protectionist setting with the support of the public, the state and agricultural actors. In

this sense it is very clearly a policy, practice and discourse that aims to preserve and conserve rural spaces, the cultural landscape, the

farming way of life and food safety. Norway is as such situated toward a ‘strong’ end of a continuum of a level of multifunctional

agriculture.

Keywords: Norway; Australia; Comparative analysis; Multifunctionality; Post-productivism; Sustainability; Political economy; Green liberalism

1. Introduction: productivism, post-productivism and

multifunctionality as conceptual tools

This paper examines the inter-related issues of producti-

vism, post-productivism and multifunctionality in agricul-

tural and pastoral production and the value of the concepts

applied to contemporary agriculture and agricultural

policy. Research into these agricultural modes of operating

is well established in Europe with geographers and rural

sociologists taking up the challenge to conceptualise

current formats of agriculture and rural land use. In his

article on productivism and post-productivism, Wilson

(2001) highlights the fact that there has been a tendency for

much of the writing in this area to be ‘UK-centric’—and

this certainly does seem to be the case. However, the

quality of the work coming out of Europe has provided a

platform for the analysis of the status of rural production

elsewhere. To date, there have only been a small number of

Australian rural researchers using the concepts of post-

productivism and multifunctionality to problematise the

notion of a move to greater environmental sustainability at

the same time that global market signals suggest that

farmers and graziers need to increase production from the

current natural resource base to remain economically

viable (Richards et al., 2005;Gray and Lawrence, 2001).

In this paper, we use the conceptual frameworks of

productivism, post-productivism and multifunctionality to

address the current and future directions of agriculture

and pastoralism in both Norway and Australia. We argue

that Norway as a nation has already incorporated its

understanding of multifunctionality, and has embedded

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doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2007.06.003



Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 73365 2839; fax: +61 73365 1544.

E-mail address: c.richards@uq.edu.au (C.A. Richards).

such terminology into its agricultural policy and practices

(Alma

˚s, 2004;Rønningen et al., 2004;Daugstad et al.,

2006). In Australia, however, we argue that whilst there is

some evidence of a move from productivism at the

ideological and policy levels, the majority of primary

producers as ‘agricultural actors’ have not necessarily

embraced this way of thinking. We argue that the green

agenda in Australia that has now been adopted bilaterally

by state and federal governments implicitly signals the

values of natural resources beyond the production of food

and ﬁbre. Programmes such as Landcare, the National

Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAPSWQ)

and the Natural Heritage Trust’s funding of regional

bodies highlight the government’s move towards a more

environmentally sustainable agriculture (Lawrence, 2005).

Before delving into this topic, it is necessary to attend to

some deﬁnitional problems—what meanings do the con-

cepts of productivism, post-productivism and multifunc-

tionality convey? The aim of this paper is not to give the

‘right’ answer but to focus upon what is happening within

agriculture and pastoralism, and whether these terms hold

value in understanding Norwegian and Australian

primary production and the complexities of environmental

degradation relating to the production of agricultural

commodities.

In particular, it is questioned whether post-productivism

and/or multifunctionality moves from a policy to a practice

at the property level and we discuss whether such

reconceptualisations of agricultural policy and practice

hold any value for the agricultural environment of

Australia and Norway, which to different degrees are

experiencing a crisis of rural decline, reduced agricultural

proﬁtability and environmental degradation (Olsson and

Rønningen, 1999;Gray and Lawrence, 2001;Lawrence

et al., 2005). Are post-productivism and multifunctionality

merely academic conceptualisations on changing agricul-

tural discourses? Are the concepts used as policy instru-

ments presenting desired solutions to problems? Or is

multifunctional agriculture the most ﬁtting description of

emerging agricultural practices? Or all of the above? This

paper focuses upon different aspects of conceptualising

agricultural production in a perspective where the

importance of social, economic and environmental sustain-

ability is considered. Using the two widely different

agricultural policy settings of Norway and Australia, the

rationale behind the contrasting forms of agriculture is

assessed across the two countries.

2. Deﬁning the concepts of productivism, post-productivism

and multifunctionality

2.1. Productivism

With the beneﬁt of hindsight, now that a number of

decades of productivist agriculture have been experienced,

productivism is perhaps the easiest of the three concepts to

deﬁne. It refers to a mode of both agricultural policy and

practice that is input intensive and where emphasis is

placed on the maximisation of the production of commod-

ities (Wilson, 2001;Burton, 2004;Ilbery and Bowler, 1998).

The ideology behind productivism precedes the Second

World War but greater intensiﬁcation of production can be

traced to war efforts to increase production and secure

food for war-torn nations (Argent, 2002;Burton, 2004).

Productivism describes not only the style of agriculture,

but the level to which a nation’s government supports

production through subsidisation, price guarantees and

protectionist policies (Argent, 2002;Gray and Lawrence,

2001). Following concerns about underfed ‘Western’

nations during the Second World War, the policies of

subsidisation and agricultural protectionism were so

‘successful’ that the European Union and other Western

countries were later faced with an over-supply of commod-

ities (Walford, 2003). These products were often withheld

from markets to prevent prices from plummeting, resulting

in the ‘butter mountains’ and ‘milk lakes’ that epitomise

the surplus production of some advanced capitalist nations

in the 1980s.

The intensiﬁed form of rural production requires an

ever-increasing application of inputs such as agri-chemi-

cals, machinery and Fordist-type management practices

which reduce labour inputs and lock producers into a

treadmill of production that is geared toward increases of

production and proﬁt (Gray and Lawrence, 2001). At the

same time markets are ﬂooded with surplus commodities,

reducing prices for all those economies that no longer rely

on protectionist policies, such as Australia. This acts as an

incentive to produce more goods to maintain proﬁt

margins, and therefore the economic viability of the family

farm (Gray and Lawrence, 2001). It is rational to suspect

that this increased exploitation of natural resources,

coupled with the necessity to increase inputs such as agri-

chemicals, has had a detrimental effect on the environment.

We concur with Wilson’s (2001, p. 80) analysis of

productivism which identiﬁes that agriculture holds a strong

ideological position in society; there is a strong connection

or co-operation between agricultural actors; the food

regime is Fordist; the agricultural production is industria-

lised and specialised; the agricultural policy is marked by

strong government support for production, property rights

and protectionism.

2.2. Post-productivism

The farming crisis of the 1980s, which saw high

commodity costs, agricultural overproduction and envir-

onmental degradation, facilitated several new measures to

reverse the negative effects of productivist-style agriculture

(Ward, 1993;Walford, 2003). Policy makers in the EU

countries reformed the Common Agricultural Policy

(CAP) with the intention of reducing agricultural produc-

tion, budgetary costs and environmental problems asso-

ciated with intensiﬁed agriculture (Walford 2003). In

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H. Bjørkhaug, C.A. Richards / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111 99

Norway, environmental issues were recognised within

agricultural production from the mid-1970s, alongside the

key goals of productivity. Policy reform measures are

characterised as having gone through a transition from a

‘productivist’ to ‘post-productivist’ era (Walford, 2003;

Wilson, 2001), however, as ‘productivist’ is so easily

deﬁned, the term or content of ‘post-productivism’ is

accordingly difﬁcult.

‘Post’-productivism implies a transition to a mode of

agricultural production that has occurred after producti-

vism (Ilbery and Bowler, 1998;Wilson, 2001) and is often

offered as a critique of the intensiﬁcation of primary

production and its detrimental effects on rural society and

the environment. Social scientists have pointed at the fact

that when the social and economic signiﬁcance of

agriculture has lost its relevance for the national economy,

problems of rural development, poverty and social exclu-

sion cannot be solved through agricultural means (Mars-

den, 2003). Additionally, the consequences of intensiﬁed

agriculture on the countryside, the changing landscape and

environmental issues caused by agricultural pollution have

brought about a different view of farmers as ‘destroyers’

rather than ‘stewards of the land’ (see Wilson 2001, p. 82;

Holmes, 2002). With this change, the rural is increasingly

separated from agriculture with new groups and interests

gaining ideological ascendency, from the consumption of

agricultural products to consumption and preservation of

the countryside and the biodiversity held within it.

As with the productivist regime, a post-productivist

regime also contains a set of dimensions. Agricultural

production or the food regime has moved into a free

market, a liberalised world market that is critical of

protectionist policies. Within agricultural production a

new emphasis is laid on consumer demands: diversiﬁcation,

pluriactivity and exstensiﬁcation (Wilson, 2001;Holmes,

2002). At the same time, the state reduces support for

production but offers some ﬁnancial assistance or incen-

tives for activities that help sustain the environment or

reverse environmental degradation (Ilbery and Bowler,

1998). Ilbery and Bowler (1998, p. 71) argue that the post-

productivist transition is strongly regulated through the

1992 CAP reforms, General Agreement on Trades and

Tariffs (GATT) negotiations and the EU convergence of

agricultural and environmental policies. As such, EU

agricultural policy has widened to incorporate the interests

of other actors, such as green groups. This has also implied

a weakening of the relationship between the farm lobby

and agriculture ministries.

2.3. Multifunctional agriculture

The state retreat from ﬁnancial support of agricultural

production has been accompanied by increased regulation

of agricultural practices, voluntary agri-environmental

policies that encourage conservation practices and the

enhancement of local planning control. The popularity of

(neo) liberal policies in Western countries, with their

emphasis on global trade in a de-regulated market has

unintentionally contributed to a further intensiﬁcation and

concentration of the food chain (Burch and Rickson, 2001;

Campbell and Lawrence, 2003;Lawrence, 1987) and many

landholders in Australia are aiming to intensify their

production through further vegetation clearing or the

purchase of additional land (Richards et al., 2005). It is

within this contradictory manifestation that productivism

and what has been referred to as post-productivism are

occurring at the same time. As Wilson (2001) argues, there

is a ﬂaw in thinking of ‘post’-productivism as something

that has occurred after productivism as there is evid-

ence that both models exist side by side. As Marsden (2003,

p. 11) wisely emphasises, there is an embodiment of conﬂict

when these models are being played out amongst the

farming and rural population. In recognition of this

dilemma of terminology, Wilson (2001, p. 95) posits the

phrase ‘multifunctional agricultural regime’, a term which

acknowledges the complexity of agricultural modes of

production that may be occurring at different spatial and

temporal localities. Used in this way, he argues, post-

productivism is useful in describing the ‘transition’ from

one mode to the other, whereas

ythe notion of a multifunctional agricultural regime

allows for multidimensional coexistence of productivist

and post-productivist action and thought and may,

therefore, be a more accurate depiction of the multi-

layered nature of rural and agricultural change (Wilson,

2001, p. 95).

As noted throughout this paper, Wilson (2001) stands as

one key supporter of the ‘multifunctional agricultural

regime’ as a preferable term for conceptualising changes in

contemporary agriculture and rural societies, arguing that

‘post-productivism’ indicates something that occurs ‘after’

productivism that is also different from it. Although

Wilson’s understanding of multifunctional agriculture is

well argued, his assertion that

yjust as the post-productivist transition may only

occur in societies that have gone through the PAR

[productivist agricultural regime], so the multifunctional

agricultural regime may only occur in societies that

have gone through the post-productivist transition

(2001, p. 95)

is contestable. Claiming a ‘post-productivist’ transition

for multifunctional praxis is in our view narrows rather

than opens up the debate for analysis and understanding

changes outside of a UK—or Eurocentric—point of view

and situation. The dualism of productivism and post-

productivism is a too simplistic a way of conceptualising

rural primary production, but does ‘multifunctionality’

represent something different, or as Wilson (2001) puts it

‘beyond’ post-productivism? This argument stems from

research, or rather a lack of research, showing evidence of a

post-productivist re-orientation at the property level. As

extensiﬁcation and diversiﬁcation of production has

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H. Bjørkhaug, C.A. Richards / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111100

occurred in many regions of advanced economies, there is

also evidence that production has intensiﬁed alongside this

(Wilson, 2001, p. 83). While the idea of post-productivism

certainly gained attention and supporters in northern

Europe, several scholars have shown that there might exist

competing rural development dynamics (for example,

Marsden, 2003;Holmes, 2006) or, more radically, that

‘the dominant framing is in favour of a neoliberal regime of

market productivism’ (Potter and Tilzey, 2005, p. 581).

The term ‘multifunctionality’ or multifunctional agricul-

ture might be seen as a policy or regime within, beside or

beyond productivism and post-productivism as it includes

several functions of agriculture in addition to its primary

role which has been mainly understood as producing food

and ﬁbre.

While many insightful analyses have been carried out on

rural transition, this paper is speciﬁcally concerned about

the transitions within agricultural policies and practices—

(rather than the broader concept of ‘landscape’ in a purely

geographical sense, as Holmes, 2006, has already dealt

with) as they relate to the search for sustainable solutions

for farming and agricultural production. In this sense,

Tilzey (2003, p. 1) argues that agricultural multifunction-

ality is a concept that seeks to capture the multiple beneﬁts

and services related to agricultural systems that should

beneﬁt human and non-human nature alike. According to

the OECD’s (2001, p. 7) ‘working deﬁnition’—the key

elements of multifunctionality are the existence of multiple

commodity and non-commodity outputs that are jointly

produced by agriculture—and the fact that some of the

non-commodity outputs exhibit the characteristics of

externalities or public goods when markets for these goods

do not exist or function poorly. In addition to producing

commodity outputs such as food and ﬁbre and other

marketable products (for example, tourism), the non-

commodity outputs include food security/safety, a rural

way of life, and the protection of the environmental

protection, biodiversity and landscape (see Durand and

Van Huylenbroeck, 2003, p. 4).

In examining the sociological components of agricultural

multifunctionality, Tilzey (2003) offers two distinct ap-

proaches to framing the issue: multifunctionality as ‘reality’

and as a ‘discourse’. The ﬁrst refers to the practical

performance of agricultural activity, the latter to the

policy. Looking into the policy level ﬁrst—multifunction-

ality is recognised as a key policy concept in World Trade

Organisation (WTO)-policy negotiations (Potter and Bur-

ney, 2002). At the level of world trade in agriculture, the

term multifunctionality has referred speciﬁcally to the

‘public good’ relating to the non-tradable concerns (NTCs)

of agriculture. Countries reliant on exports such as

Australia have strongly opposed the WTO’s ‘green light’

on domestic subsidies and border protection as they are

claimed to distort markets (Parliament of Australia, 2001).

Tilzey’s ﬁndings resonate with those of van der Ploeg

and Roep (2003) who found that multifunctionality holds a

strong paradigmatic position at both an EU policy level

and at the practical level (farmers involved in rural

development practices)—however with varying endorse-

ment at the national level. The nation state supporters

of multifunctionality in WTO concessional terms argue

for the opportunity to support their farmers economically

without being accused of distorting trade. Yet, among

supporters there is a limitation of valid arguments,

with a general view that the WTO ‘box’ categories are, in

essence, a veiled form of protectionism. Potter and Burney

(2002) state that the EU is also distancing itself from

extreme statements issued by countries such as Norway

and Japan. Norwegian agricultural authorities want to

move economic support for farming from the ‘yellow box’

in WTO terms, where most funding is found today, to the

‘green box’—transfers that do not disturb international

production and trade (Prestegard, 2004). However, does

this exclude food exporting countries from practising

multifunctionality outside of the WTO frameworks? In

other words, can multifunctionality exist as a concept in its

own right, decoupled from its bureaucratised meaning, and

function as a response to social, economic and environ-

mental decline due to the intrinsic potential of a multi-

functional approach to improve rural and environmental

sustainability?

This viewpoint is also forwarded by Cocklin et al. (2006)

who argue that conceiving of multifunctionality purely in

terms of trade liberalisation reﬂects the neoliberalism

philosophy that also contributed to the commoditisation

of nature and the relegation of social and environ-

mental sustainability. To develop a multifunctional agri-

culture changes are needed on more than policy level

(Durand and Van Huylenbroeck, 2003), rather a sustain-

able multifunctional agriculture, accepting the equal

importance of social and environmental sustainability

and economic sustainability, would necessarily mean that

a sustainable practice was possible at the farm level. We

will not argue that a ‘correct’ comprehension of a

sustainable multifunctional agriculture needs to be at-

tained, but will discuss whether the opportunities for a

sustainable output is present. It is in this vein that we

examine the prospects of multifunctionality as a facilitator

of social, economic and environmental sustainability in its

own right.

As a point of departure from purely WTO conceptions

of multifunctionality via the ‘green-box’ agreement,

we examine the present agricultural and pastoral modes

at two extreme points of a scale, the market-oriented,

liberalistic Australian agriculture and the market

protected small-scale Norwegian agriculture. In doing this,

an evaluation can be made regarding the emerging

agricultural and pastoral land use in both Norway and

Australia and to what degree a sustainable agricultural

multifunctionality exists—meaning an environmentally

sound, socially sustainable and economically viable agri-

cultural production, as an ideology, policy or discourse and

a practice or reality—that can be enacted at the property

level.

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H. Bjørkhaug, C.A. Richards / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111 101

3. The status of agricultural production in Norway and

Australia

The value of multifunctionalism will be further ascer-

tained through the grounding of this concept within the

agricultural format of both Norway and Australia. These

two countries are both advanced capitalist nations yet have

conceived of the relational role of agricultural production

and society in quite different ways. Before embarking on

this exercise, it is important to consider the contextual

settings of each nation by describing some key character-

istics.

The descriptions and analyses are based on an extensive

literature review in addition to building upon our own

research in Australia and Norway. Data consist of inter-

views with Norwegian farmers (thoroughly described in

Bjørkhaug (2006a, b)), analyses of statistical material from

Norwegian farmer surveys

and the use of statistical

material from secondary sources. Interviews with Austra-

lian graziers were conducted between 2002 and 2004 (see

Richards et al., 2005, for initial ﬁndings from this

research). Data are not presented as a symmetrical analysis

or test of arguments throughout the paper, but represent

the foundation of how the comparative description and

analysis is outlined.

3.1. An Australian story

In Australia, agricultural production was introduced to

the Australian landscape through a process of colonisation.

The Europeans brought with them a system of agriculture

that had evolved over time to suit a wet and fertile

landscape, rather than the arid and semi-arid landscape of

Australia. Rather than adapt their styles of farming and

pastoral production to the new environment, the new

settlers set about dominating the landscape to suit their

purposes (see Barr and Cary, 1992;Gasteyer and Flora,

2000;Gray and Lawrence, 2001). This later involved the

‘opening’ of new lands for production by clearing trees

then, following the Second World War, progressing to

more intensive forms of production through broadscale

clearing and the use of agricultural inputs such as

irrigation, chemical fertilisers and pesticides and converting

native pastures with exotic grass species.

As at December 2006, the Australian Bureau of Statistics

(2006b) estimated the total resident population to be just

under 21 million. Despite its vast size, Australia is arguably

one of the world’s most urbanised nations with around

80% of Australians living within 50 km of the coast

(Bourke and Lockie, 2001). In rural areas, 99.6% of

broadacre and dairy farms are traditional family farms—

although the number of corporate farms is growing,

particularly in the beef and cotton industries (Gray and

Lawrence, 2001). According to ABS estimated data, there

were approximately 130,000 farms as of June 2005. Of

these, the beef cattle industry was the largest in terms of

farm numbers, consisting of 28% of all farms. Mixed

farming (grain/sheep/cattle) represented 13% of all farms

followed by sheep and grain with 10% respectively

(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006a). Over the last 25

years, the number of farms has declined by 25%, leaving

only relatively small or large farms (Gray and Lawrence,

2001). This has been facilitated by the ‘get big or get out’

rural restructuring of industrialised agriculture, whereby

larger properties and increased outputs are needed to

compete with global commodity prices.

Given the scale of the Australian continent, property size

can be small on urban fringes or thousands of square

kilometres in remote, beef cattle areas. In many remote

areas, land is marginal, soils are poor and rainfall is

infrequent. Hence pastoral properties span great distances

in order to be economically viable. Clearing of vegetation

and overgrazing, coupled with long periods of dry weather,

has the potential to cause the desertiﬁcation of large tracts

of the Australian landscape. Due to the climatic variability,

shifting commodity prices and, in some cases, high debt

level, graziers tend to adopt a low-risk strategy,

which reinforces productivist-style management practices

(Richards et al., 2005).

As the rural population is decreasing, those who have

remained in agriculture and pastoralism increasingly ﬁnd

themselves on a ‘treadmill of production’ (see Marsden,

1998;Vanclay and Lawrence, 1995;Ward, 1993). This

necessitates increased inputs such as agri-chemicals, and

hence costs, which in turn has a negative effect on farm

viability and environmental sustainability. Broadscale tree

clearing is a prime example of the ever-increasing need to

obtain more land for production (Rolfe, 2002;Richards et

al., 2005;Lawrence, 2005). The recent ban on broadscale

clearing in the state of Queensland was met with ﬁerce

opposition from the farm lobby, a further testament to the

commitment to broadscale, productivist-style agriculture

and pastoralism in Australia. Ironically, on the other side

of the world, a lack of agricultural activity and grazing

animals is causing Norway to become a forest, which is

seen largely as an environmental problem (Olsson and

Rønningen, 1999).

3.2. A Norwegian story

Norway has a signiﬁcantly different system of agricul-

tural production than Australia, a system more in

accordance with natural land capacity, capabilities and

traditions which have evolved to match the landscape over

centuries. Geography and climate create different condi-

tions for agricultural production and Norway is consider-

ably smaller than Australia in size. Climatically, the

differences between these two countries are extreme.

Norway has temperate, mild winters and cold summers

along the coast, cold winters and warmer summers in the

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Trend-data 2004 is survey data of Norwegian farmers collected by

Centre for Rural Research, Trondheim, Norway, in January 2004.

Numbers are based on own analyses of these data.

H. Bjørkhaug, C.A. Richards / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111102

interior (Atlapedia, 2003). Despite its northern position,

Norway takes advantage of the warm Gulf Stream, which

provides agriculture with fair conditions for a reasonable

level of production in the summer season.

The 4.5 million Norwegians are spread over a major part

of Norway. About 75% of the Norwegian population live

in what Atlapedia (2003) deﬁnes as urban, but ‘cities’ are

often small, having between 10,000 and 50,000 people. This

means that the population is dispersed throughout the

country. The process of centralisation of the population is

also perceived as a problem in Norway. The goal to uphold

a populated countryside is maintained within the Norwe-

gian regional policy and is widely supported throughout

the Norwegian population (for example, see Alma

˚s, 2004).

This issue is also strongly supported by the farmers

themselves and their role as maintainers of rural commu-

nities is highly valued. In Trend-data (footnote 1) from

2004, about 70% of Norwegian farmers agreed that

agriculture contributes to a high degree to ‘living rural

communities’ and ‘a beautiful countryside’. Around 60%

believed agriculture’s role in ‘contributing to knowledge of

food production and shaping the Norwegian identity’ to be

of great value. Still, many farmers ﬁnd it difﬁcult to handle

the policy goals of rationalisation on the one hand and to

produce public goods on the other (Rønningen et al.,

2004).

4. Agricultural policies in Norway and Australia

Agricultural production, the market situation and policy

relating to agriculture have gone through major alterations

since the Second World War. Now, globalisation, or more

speciﬁcally, global capitalism, has an enormous inﬂuence

on agribusiness and the agri-food market. Global ﬁrms

view regions of the world as potential markets and the

policy environment enables goods and capital to ﬂow

around the world with minimal restrictions (Gray and

Lawrence, 2001). Still, nations and political and economic

institutions respond to world trade with different policies.

Australia and Norway, two Western countries originating

from the same cultural cradle, have developed quite

different agricultural policy settings. Agricultural produc-

tion in Australia and in Norway is aimed at different

markets and the distinction between domestic or foreign

markets is also illustrated through Norwegian and

Australian policies on agriculture. Some essential features

illustrate the developments in these two countries.

In Australia, agricultural products like wool, sugar, beef

and wheat supplied a post-war European market. The

production was protected, subsidised and regulated by the

state (Lawrence et al., 1997). During the 1950s and 1960s

agriculture prospered under the liberal-country-party

expansion goals of increasing agricultural products and

increasing sales abroad (Lawrence, 1987). Australia’s rural

producers used the substantial beneﬁts they gained from

state subsidisation of agriculture to increase production

and improve productivity throughout the ‘long-boom’ of

capitalist expansion (Lawrence, 1987, p. 9). Already

established with a ‘world trade perspective’, Australian

markets send raw agricultural commodities overseas and

import a large volume of processed and manufactured

goods.

As agricultural expansion also increased in other

Western countries, overproduction occurred. As this forced

the prices of agricultural products down, agriculture was

left vulnerable to market forces. This led farmers into a

cost-price-squeeze in the late 1960s, accelerated by the

increasing expenses on agricultural inputs produced by

agribusiness ﬁrms:

Although the terms of trade had begun to move against

agriculture from the early 1950s the state, ever conscious

of agriculture’s contribution to export earnings, had

succeeded in underwriting farming providing, amongst

other beneﬁts, cheap credit, input bounties, loans to

marketing authorities, quarantine services, water re-

source development, research, extension services, sub-

sidies, concessions and taxation relief (Lawrence, 1987,

p. 9).

Later, Great Britain’s entry into the common market

fenced out Australian and New Zealand from free access to

traditional trading partners. During the few years follow-

ing this period, subsidies were abolished in Australia. Even

with the reinstatement of a conservative coalition in 1975,

subsidies were not brought back to earlier levels (Lawr-

ence, 1987). The farmers themselves responded to the crisis

by forming The National Farmers’ Federation (NFF)

taking on an ‘anti-state-interventionist’ approach,

applauding economic rationalist views that inefﬁcient

farmers and general wage inﬂexibility were the two major

problems facing agriculture.

Australia responded differently from Europe and the US

to the emerging realities of integrated global agriculture

(Share et al., 1991). While Europe and the US have had

ongoing protection of their family farming, Australia chose

the free trade path. The logic was that with a decline in

agricultural subsidies in Europe and the US, these nations

would lose their competitive edge and Australia could serve

these markets with low price food. Yet, with the European

and US trading blocks not giving ground, this strategy

served limited success (Share et al., 1991, p. 6).

Australian agricultural policy has, since the mid-1970s,

travelled on a pathway towards non-subsidised agriculture

within a free trade world market. However, more recently,

increasing attention is being paid to the negative con-

sequences of intensive agriculture on the environment. At

this stage governments encourage individuals and local

communities to take action (and recognise) their own

environmental problems caused by high pressure on the

land (see Cheshire, 2006).

Different ideals and political goals, than those developed

in Australia, dominated the second half of the 1900s in

Norway. The integration of Norwegian government and

the agricultural interests is a key factor in the explanation

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H. Bjørkhaug, C.A. Richards / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111 103

of how Norwegian agriculture has been sustained through

the shift of industrialisation and rationalisation of agri-

cultural production (Alma

˚s, 2004). Through organisation

in co-operatives, unions and political parties, the Norwe-

gian farmers have, since the late 1930s, had an ability to

inﬂuence policy in a social democratic model of strong co-

operation between state and sector interest, natural

resources and labour (Alma

˚s, 2004). Norway has had and

still has one of the world’s most comprehensive systems of

agricultural subsidies with a system of little export and

little import of ‘competing’ agricultural products.

From the 1950s, Norway found itself in an era of

productivist ideals, with the techno-scientiﬁc development,

mechanisation and rationalisation of agriculture (Alma

˚s,

2004). Modernisation was the mantra, but so too was

protection and support through agricultural subsidies. In

the 1960s, Norwegian policy concentrated on developing a

stable family farm through planned national policies

(Alma

˚s, 1994). Taking the market into consideration,

Norwegian agriculture was to be protected. Welfare issues

took over the political agenda in the 1970s to secure the

social status of farmers in a market where prices were

falling and farmers were forced to leave. A political goal

was to equalise the incomes of industry workers and

farmers. The goal never materialised but brought about

substantial welfare gains for farmers (Alma

˚s, 1994). It also

opened a short period of optimism and growth in

Norwegian agricultural production (Alma

˚s, 2004;Bleke-

saune and Alma

˚s, 2002). In this period environmental

issues are ﬁrst found written down in agricultural policy

documents (Blekesaune, 1999). Protection was still im-

portant, but now Norway was also involved in interna-

tional trade agreements like GATT (the forerunner of

WTO) (Alma

˚s, 2004).

With new international commitments and the problem of

overproduction, focus on negative effects of agricultural

production on nature and farmers’ increasing dependence

on subsidies also entered the public debate in Norway,

alternatives had to be developed. From 1980 onwards,

there has been a greening and a re-regulation of Norwegian

agriculture (Alma

˚s, 1994). Alma

˚s’ studies, however, have

indicated that there has been little change for farmers with

changing policies. The key word has been ‘persistence’

rather than ‘change’. Norwegian farmers adapted to policy

changes even before actual changes were made. It was

found that ‘farmers in Norway lowered their investments

and used less fertilisers and pesticides even before the

present policy of ‘‘green liberalism’’ was implemented’

(Alma

˚s, 1994, p. 15).

From the 1990s a new era arrived with new internal and

external competition through institutionalisation and de-

co-operativisation. Power moved to the market and the

WTO. The WTO agreement of 1994 forced Norway to

lower tariffs over time and state control was decentralised,

and many institutions like marketing boards and the

agricultural banks were abolished or merged with others.

Despite this, farmers’ voices were still heard through the

meat and dairy co-operatives and the yearly Agricultural

Agreement.

However, as Alma

˚s (2004) notes, the Norwe-

gian blend of democracy and capitalism is under pressure,

partly because Norwegian politicians are abdicating before

the global market forces, and partly because Norway is

bound by international agreements.

One response to this has been to emphasise the NTCs of

agriculture. In 1991, Alstadheimutvalget (a government

appointed committee) formulated food security as the

major goal of Norwegian agricultural policy. This was to

be achieved through 5 points: food preparedness, environ-

ment and resource protection, rural settlement, equality of

status between farmers and other people, and secure

incomes in agriculture (Blekesaune, 1999). In 1998, the

Department of agriculture for the ﬁrst time invited tenders

for a report on the multifunctional role of agriculture.

Norwegian research institutions were invited to analyse the

‘multifunctionality’ of Norwegian agriculture and with that

possible NTCs of economic support to agriculture in

Norway. The research focused on food preparedness, rural

policy and environmental issues, and added to production

of food and ﬁbre, this was suggested as the multifunctional

role of agriculture in Norway (Blekesaune, 1999). In this

context, multifunctionality refers to the additional outputs

or functions of a viable (‘traditional’) agriculture. Agri-

culture’s contribution to a long-term food security, the

viability of rural areas, cultural heritage, land conservation

and the maintenance of agri-biodiversity are all on the

ofﬁcial Norwegian ‘NTC list’ and put forward in negotia-

tions in the WTO. According to the Norwegian Ministry of

Agriculture (2004a) the multifunctionality of Norwegian

agriculture is now ensured through economic, legislative

and administrative measures and through training and

extension. Even though trying to protect its agricultural

production, policies are also changing at the national

level. From the end of the 1990s, domestic agricultural

policy has encouraged increased rationalisation on the one

hand, and value-adding based on agricultural resources on

the other.

Norwegian policy might resemble EU policy in its

arguments for protecting the nature of its agriculture.

One of the key arguments for Norway not joining the EU

was however, and still is, agricultural concerns. As

Norwegian interests fear the consequences of international

trade on its agriculture, the fear is greatly related to the

possible effect of competing with goods served by the EU.

Norway does co-operate with the EU through the

European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement. The Agree-

ment involves the free trade of products among agreeing

partners, however, with limitations on agriculture and

ﬁshery products. So far, there have been no dramatic

consequences for Norwegian agriculture, either through

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Important parts of the agricultural policy are laid down in the

Agricultural Agreement, negotiated between the farmers’ organisations

and the government and approved by the Parliament (Norwegian Ministry

of Agriculture, 2004a).

H. Bjørkhaug, C.A. Richards / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111104

collaboration with WTO, the EU or through changing

national policies (Veggeland, 2001). At the time of writing,

the Norwegian opinion is not in favour of extending the

collaboration to a proper EU membership.

In sum, governments of Australia and Norway have

taken quite different approaches to managing their nation’s

agriculture. Australia has not been impervious to global

capitalism and political leadership that has exposed

agriculture to global competition and free trade by

withdrawing ﬁnancial support through subsidies. Norway’s

policies have been more protectionist in nature and have

been able to engage in a level of global trade whilst

supporting NTCs, such as the landscape, environment

and rural communities, through subsidisation and the

re-regulation of agriculture.

5. Agricultural modalities in praxis

Having provided the social, political, historical and

geographical context of current agricultural practices in

Australia and Norway—and considering some of the

deﬁnitional and inherent problems of productivism, post-

productivism and multifunctionality—the issue of multi-

functionality, and the extent to which it has been accepted

and implemented by agricultural and state actors in both

Norway and Australia, will be analysed.

5.1. Is there a multifunctional Australian agriculture?

While cognisant of the problems posed by dualistic

thinking (Argent, 2002;Evans et al., 2002;Wilson, 2001), a

move away from protectionism and subsidisation of

agriculture has occurred indicating what some may claim

as a ‘post-productivist transition’ (see e.g. Wilson, 2001).

The neoliberal state now places greater emphasis on

regulatory signals to respond to environmental damage

and producers are expected to be independent of govern-

ment assistance. In Australia, extension services that

offered technical advice to farmers and graziers on ways

to improve production have traditionally been delivered by

state government agencies (Departments of Agriculture/

Primary Industries). Over the last decade these services

have generally been in decline. Increasingly, landholders

are expected to purchase services from the private sector

that was historically the province of state-sponsored

extension.

There is evidence that countries such as New Zealand

(Willis, 2001) and the UK (Burton, 2004) and Australia

(Argent, 2002;Smailes, 2002) to a lesser extent have made

the conceptual shift away from productivism to something

else. In Australia, can ‘something else’ be described as post-

productivist or multifunctional? Having noted the pitfalls

of the concept ‘post-productivist’ due to the inherent

reliance on dualisms that do not begin to capture the scope

of diversity within and between these concepts, multi-

functionality is opted for as the most appropriate analytical

term. Therefore, is Australian agriculture, like its Norwe-

gian counterpart, ‘multifunctional’? Does it attend to the

needs of NTCs such as biodiversity, landscape mainte-

nance, cultural heritage, indigenous rights and vibrant

rural communities?

The rural geographer Holmes (2002, 2006) has been one

of only a few in Australia to take up this challenge by

examining the Australian rangelands in terms of its

commodity versus amenity-oriented regions. Holmes

(2002) argues that there has been a change in Australia’s

pastoral areas towards post-productivism but stresses that

this is not a result of any attitude change by pastoralists. In

a recent paper, Holmes (2006) suggests that there are three

key forces propelling the multifunctional transition in rural

Australia: (1) agricultural overcapacity, due to technologi-

cal advances and agricultural policies to a lesser extent

(production values); (2) the emergence of alternative

amenity orientated uses, which are capable of competing

with, complementing, or replacing agriculture—for exam-

ple, the increasing importance of non-market uses and the

rural as a site of consumption (consumption values) and

(3) changing societal values, such as the valuing of

biodiversity, ecological sustainability and social justice

(protection values). Out of this Holmes (2006, p. 146) has

proposed that there are seven deﬁnable landscape types (or

‘modes of occupance’) that have appeared in Australia’s

transition to multifunctionality. He describes these as a

productivist agricultural mode (production values

dominate), a rural amenity mode (consumption values

dominate), a small farm or pluriactivity mode (mix of

production and consumption values), a peri-metropolitan

mode (intense competition of values), a marginalised

agricultural mode (integration of production and protec-

tion values) and conservation and Indigenous modes

(protection values emphasised).

Clearly, there has not been a wholesale shift, at the

property level, towards the values of multifunctionality.

What can be asked, however, is not only whether

Australian agriculture has moved away from productivism,

but to what extent it has moved away and what might be

preventing transitions into multifunctionality. To assess

this, it is necessary to examine the varying conceptual

spaces within society such as at the level of ideology,

policy, discourse or reality and how these areas of thought

are manifested in legislation and policy or in landholder

and ‘green’ discourses. At the level of government or the

state, an ideology of multifunctionalism may be held, and,

to some extent, this may be subsequently translated into

practice or reality via legislation and the provision of

economic incentives to landholders for ecosystem services.

Of importance to the discussion in this paper is that

Holmes (2002, 2006) contests the value of agency among

rural actors in facilitating the transition to a multifunc-

tional countryside. However, it can be argued that the role

of agricultural actors is pivotal if this continuum towards a

multifunctional agriculture is to be maintained. However,

there is much evidence that landholders are resistant to

change for a number of complex reasons, including

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H. Bjørkhaug, C.A. Richards / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111 105

concerns about land autonomy (Reeve, 2001), suspicion

about government agendas (Richards et al., 2005), a

mismatch between landholders’ values and practices (Cary

et al., 2002); an internalised and embodied culture of

productivism as the only legitimate form of primary

production (Burton, 2004), the political–economic impera-

tives that lock landholders into productivist practices

(Lawrence et al., 2005).

It is suggested here that the ‘litmus test’ for how far

Australia is along a multifunctional pathway is to gauge

how well such concepts are embraced by landholders, who

are in essence the caretakers of the majority of the land in

Australia. Landholders often possess ethics of stewardship,

but often do not practise it to its full potential (Vanclay

and Lawrence, 1995; Lawrence et al., 2005). Landholders

are subject to a range of contradictory and conﬂicting

messages relating to their levels of production and

sustainable land management. Regulatory and policy

signals promote sustainable agriculture and at the same

time global economic imperatives are forcing producers to

increase outputs to remain competitive and economically

viable as a business. This, more often than not, requires

that producers engage in more intensiﬁed forms of

production, for example, clearing native vegetation, re-

seeding pastures with non-native species, increasing the use

of agri-chemicals or looking towards genetically modiﬁed

organisms to help increase production and proﬁts. This

cycle experienced by many Australian producers suggests a

more deeply entrenched ‘advanced productivism’ rather

than a shift from productivist practices or values

(see Burton, 2004). This argument is further demonstrated

in Richards et al. (2005, p. 202) where landholders

reported that levels of sustainability could be determined

by economic success, or the ‘balance sheet’ and

where unproductive land was referred to as ‘rubbish

country’ and forested areas were described as ‘worthless

scrub’.

Whilst landholders themselves may not be fully con-

versant with the potential sustainability outcomes of

multifunctional approaches to primary production,

over the last decade or two in Australia, governments

have instituted a range of regulations and incentives

to encourage better environmental management of natural

resources on private property. At present, the rural is a

site of contested knowledge (see Marsden, 1998), with the

green lobby gaining more ground politically, to the

extent that the Australian governments have legislated

against any further broadscale tree clearing. This ban on

clear-felling is not only signiﬁcant in terms of preserving

natural heritage but is symbolic that Australian govern-

ments are moving towards environmental protection

rather than production and hence taking some important,

early steps towards mutifunctionality. Clearly, at the

state level, with the institution of programmes such as

Landcare and sustainability programmes through agencies

such as the NAPSWQ, there are tangible shifts toward

policies recognising the rural as a site not only for

agriculture but also as a place for services, such as the

conservation of natural and social assets. At this stage,

there still appears to be a mismatch between the goals of

primary producers and those of the green lobby and

governments.

The productivist paradigm has been the dominant mode

of production for generations and to shift from this now

embedded way of doing things strikes at the core of their

own knowledge base, identity and role as producers

(Burton, 2004). With decreasing opportunities for farm

families to improve their ﬁnancial situation (and in many

cases it is dire), landholders report feeling cornered by

governments who no longer recognise the farmer as the key

actor in rural landscapes. This loss of rural hegemony has

had a marked impact upon landholders both emotionally

and practically. At the emotional level, landholders report

to feeling besieged by green groups and governments who

are now seeking to regulate the land management practices

of the once-revered farmer. Farmers who were previously

upheld as the protectors of the countryside are now at odds

to explain why they are often labelled as environmental

vandals through the popular media. Landholders are still

receiving the message of ‘get big or get out’ (Higgins and

Lockie, 2001;Richards et al., 2005) and witnessing the

success of corporate farming that has intensiﬁed produc-

tion, outputs and proﬁts. Considering this scenario, it is

not difﬁcult to understand why farmers and graziers do not

support their government’s agricultural policies and why

landholders often dispute ‘best practice’ conservation

methods.

It can be argued that the multifunctional context

undermines the hegemony of the farmer as the holder of

private property rights and custodian of the countryside. In

Australia, landholders are very aware that their private

property rights are less robust, with state and federal

governments regulating in a number of areas including

vegetation management and water allocation. For Aus-

tralian landholders, new environmental policies are per-

ceived as a demand that interrupts their own beliefs and

ideals of good stewardship of the land (Lawrence et al.,

2005).

Whether Australia is merely ‘greening’ its agricultural

policies, or is on the cusp of reform towards a truly

sustainable, multifunctional agriculture, is debatable. What

is apparent is that Australian governments are a reasonable

way toward conceptualising the necessity of multifunc-

tional agriculture if both agriculture and the environment

are to be viable in the future. Landholders’ views often do

not synchronise with those of politicians and policy

makers, mostly due to the inherent contradictions of

development versus conservation (see Buttel, 1998) and a

sense of betrayal and abandonment at the hands of

government (Richards et al., 2005). Not only is the move

from a productivist form of agriculture disparate across

time, agricultural industries, geographical localities, insti-

tutions and agricultural actors (Holmes, 2002, 2006) but it

is clear that in Australia there is a chasm between the

ARTICLE IN PRESS

H. Bjørkhaug, C.A. Richards / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111106

ideology of local agricultural actors and state and federal-

level bureaucrats.

5.2. Multifunctional agriculture in Norway

The Norwegian situation is quite different from that

currently experienced in Australia. As for other European

countries, multifunctionality in Norway is bound up with a

social mode of regulation and the contradictory dynamics

of agriculture (Tilzey, 2003, p. 3). Tilzey (2003) clearly gives

an indication of how to critique the model of multi-

functional agriculture and the way it has developed in

Europe and in this case, Norway. With this come questions

of national protectionism.

Whilst Australia has not labelled itself multifunctional in

terms of its agriculture, Norway has certainly embraced the

notion of a multifunctional agriculture, endorsed through

the WTO. This is clearly expressed within Norwegian

agricultural policy. The Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture

deﬁnes agriculture as multifunctional when it has one or

several roles or functions in addition to the production of

food and ﬁbre. These other outputs from agriculture

include among others food security over time, viability of

rural areas, cultural heritage, land conservation, the

maintenance of agricultural landscapes and agri-biological

diversity (Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture, 2004b).

These categories of support in the WTO Agreement on

Agriculture are essential for Norwegian agriculture as

agricultural production conditions vary considerably,

climatically or for other reasons, among WTO member

countries. In order to establish a fair and market-oriented

agricultural trading system there is, according to the

Norwegian agricultural authorities, a need to acknow-

ledge the right of every country to secure the coexistence

of various types of agriculture (Norwegian Ministry of

Agriculture, 2004b). Given the greater social good of

such services, the landholder should be assisted ﬁnancially.

Norway, as such, has not adjusted its policy in the

post-productivist sense described by Wilson (2001). The

social democratic model of Norway, though certainly

liberalised over time, still holds strong corporate

elements. Norwegian agriculture has been re-regulated,

emphasising green elements or ‘green liberalism’ (Alma

˚s,

1994, 2004).

With this, goals for a multifunctional agriculture are

stressed in words, but the effect might not be clear. The

2004 Agricultural Agreement negotiated between the

farmers’ organisations and the government encourages

further effectiveness and rationalisation to ensure competi-

tiveness in a future of increased international trade and the

Norwegian consumer demand for cheaper food (Norwe-

gian Ministry of Agriculture, 2004c). This means fewer and

bigger farms. At the same time more funding is moved to

‘green’ actions like further economic support for convert-

ing to organic farming and support to take care of cultural

landscapes. Farmers are encouraged to take action on their

properties and ﬁnancial support is also given to increase

the value added from the agricultural properties like letting

out hunting rights, rural and farm tourism, reﬁning farm

products, engaging in ‘green care’

and so on.

Does this imply that Norwegian agricultural policy and

its agriculture as such can be deﬁned as multifunctional?

Some critical voices would say that agri-environmental

measures function as an alibi for further restructuring of

agriculture and food production (Rønningen, 1999). By

this, Rønningen (1999, 2001) means that most agricultural

support is aimed towards the rationalisation of agricultural

production whilst at the same time direct support is given

to fulﬁl green goals of multifunctional agriculture. Many

farms are getting bigger and more effective in a producti-

vist spirit, while multifunctional land use is mainly found

on marginal land and in extensive production like

haymaking and grazing land (Flø, 2002). Further restric-

tions and regulations are imposed on agricultural or

farmer’s land due to both international conventions and

national goals and policies. These involve national parks,

protected landscape areas and the protection of large

predators such as bears and wolves. These aims are

conﬂictual at several levels, between rural and urban

interests but also for the farmers’ themselves. For many,

changing production to farm tourism or niche products is

possible, but for others changes are difﬁcult (Rønningen

et al., 2004). Difﬁculties are connected both to farm

resources and the stage of life the farming family ﬁnds itself in.

New roles emerge for the farmers as their role

interpretation is changing from being, just a farmer, or

food producer to becoming landowners and rural business

people (Rønningen, 2001). Some struggle as they under-

stand that their work is changing and they are in essence

becoming ‘public gardeners’. Even though many want to

fulﬁl new goals, the ability to ‘nurse’ the land is the last

thing to be done after a long workday. In addition, as also

found in Australia, there is a discrepancy in the interpreta-

tion of what is ‘aesthetically pleasing’ and what is ‘good

management’. For example, inherited (productivist) ideals

of fully fertilised, dark green, re-seeded meadows often

exceed the farmers’ ‘capability’ to leave the cultural

meadows full of weeds and wildﬂowers, as is said to be

‘best’ by accepted environmental management standards

(Flø, 2002).

Norwegian agriculture and its family farmers are under

pressure economically, due to the food-market situation

globally, but also due to economic viability in a domestic

labour and food market. Farmers are struggling to ﬁnd

new and different solutions to these problems in order to

stay in agriculture, including pluriactivity, part-time farm-

ing, organic farming or farm-based tourism. Many support

the new programmes out of economic necessity for farm

survival (Rønningen, 1999).

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Green care is welfare programme whereby people with special needs

can engage in activities on the farm as a therapeutic environment. Farmers

enter into contracts with local agencies to provide such services in

collaboration with welfare workers.

H. Bjørkhaug, C.A. Richards / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111 107

A sense of multifunctionality is not brand new in

Norway. Traditional farming in combination with forestry,

ﬁshing and/or hunting has historically been a common

strategy among many farmers, especially in areas of low

production (Hetland, 1986;Flø, 1998;Flø and Bjørkhaug,

2001). Pluriactivity is common since most Norwegian

farms are small and an essential amount of income needs

to be derived from wage labour outside farming (Bjør-

khaug and Blekesaune, 2004;Blekesaune and Alma

˚s, 2002;

Løwe, 1998;Rognstad, 1991). However, this should not

only be viewed as farm income being too low. Many

farmers have chosen a double career (Jervell, 1999;Rye,

2002) and/or have a partner in the wage earning labour

market (Bjørkhaug and Blekesaune, 2004).

Norwegian farmers have been found to be ready to

change, even before a new regulation is enforced (Alma

˚s,

1994), and when asking them about what agricultural

policy should give priority to, the majority respond most

positively to ‘multifunctional’ aspects of agriculture, such

as decentralised food production, food security, safe food,

Norwegian food, rural settlement, cultural landscapes and

biological diversity (Norsk Landbrukssamvirke, 2005).

Farmers’ attitudes are in favour of multifunctional goals

but they fear cuts in ﬁnancial support. Farmers and

politicians both agree upon multifunctional ideals for

agriculture, but farmers do not agree that further

rationalisation for cheaper food needs to exist alongside

this policy (Trend-data, refer to footnote 1).

The majority of Norwegian farmers feel that the

environment of the Norwegian agriculture is healthy

(Bjørkhaug and Flø, 1999). However, what is recognised

as ‘healthy’ or ‘good’ might vary both between farmers and

environmentalists and also between farmers involved in

different modes of production. For instance, the opinions

regarding the environment and possible effects of pesticides

and other artiﬁcial inputs on land vary signiﬁcantly

between organic and conventional farmers in Norway

(e.g. Bjørkhaug and Flø, 1999;Storstad and Bjørkhaug,

2003) but also among male and female farmers (Bjørkhaug,

2006a, b).

The Norwegian farmers might not ﬁnd it as difﬁcult to

make the transition to this multifunctional mode of

production as has been the case in Australia. With smaller

farms and the availability of off-farm work and govern-

ment payments, landholders earn their income from

numerous sources and are protected from the anomalies

of the global market. Farmers have not lost their trust with

policy makers or society at large. Eighty percent of the

Norwegian population wants to keep Norwegian agricul-

ture at the present level to preserve rural communities,

Norwegian food production and cultural landscapes

(Norsk Landbrukssamvirke, 2005) and farmers perceive

that consumers are supportive (Trend-data, see footnote 1).

Within this context Norwegian actors provide an emphasis

on farmers as the main defenders of cultural heritage linked

to agriculture and rural communities (Daugstad et al.,

2006).

Competing within a non-regulated world market is not

believed to be sustainable for the majority of Norwegian

farmers. By attaching itself to the ‘outside world’, through

agreements with the WTO and international acts of

environmental sustainability, Norway is bound to an

eventual change. Protectionism is no longer easy, and as

other countries’ agricultural policies are open to criticism

for using ‘green-box’ arguments in WTO negotiations,

Norway is doing the same. Some economic analyses have

shown that even though other sectors can deliver some of

the outputs of a multifunctional agriculture, it is cost

effective to let joint agricultural production take care of it

(Vatn, 2002). As Potter and Burney (2002, p. 46) argue: it is

not the existence of multifunctionality as such that is

controversial but rather the design of domestic subsidies

and to which these are deemed to be trade distorting. Such

subsidies are presently viewed as legitimate in Norway,

both at the policy level, among the farmers and in the

general public.

6. Conclusion

It has been argued that whilst multifunctionality is an

appropriate concept through which to assess changes in

agricultural formats—and a necessary component of social

and environmental sustainability—the multifunctional

agricultural paradigm is currently weak in Australia.

However, it can be detected in some policy settings largely

through programmes that seek to devolve responsibility for

sustainability to the regional level—although this has not

necessarily trickled down to the property level to any great

degree. Norway, however, has embedded both the lan-

guage and action of a multifunctional agriculture into its

agricultural mode of operation. This has been, to a great

extent, facilitated through a high reliance on governmental

subsidies, a system based on an agreement between

governments and farmers’ organisations (As described in

footnote 2). As such, agricultural actors have a voice and

role in bringing about a multifunctional countryside. At a

policy level, there is a shift towards a requirement of more

sustainable production and development. Special ﬁnancial

support is given to farmers for their efforts in sustaining

biologically diverse, cultural landscapes on agricultural

properties. Whilst subsidies have often been used to

encourage productivism, the Norwegian experience has

also shown that they can be used to bring about

multifunctional landscapes. The history of a conﬂict-free

settlement in rural areas might be one of the reasons for the

successful maintenance of the environment and viability of

rural communities. The Norwegians are used to an active

utility and use relationship to the resources both through

agriculture and harvesting of ﬁsh and game. This might

have brought about a more amenity-oriented approach to

a multifunctional agriculture that focuses upon the

problematic externalities of a productivist agricultural

regime (Rønningen et al., 2004).

ARTICLE IN PRESS

H. Bjørkhaug, C.A. Richards / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 98–111108

We have argued that it is not necessary to examine

multifunctionality only in terms of WTO agreements, and

that the concept holds integrity in its own right. The

importance of looking separately at the ideology and

practice of multifunctionality has also been posited. It has

been shown that Australian governments and some non-

agricultural actors such as green groups are in the process

of making the conceptual shift toward a multifunctional

agriculture and viewing the rural as not only a site of

production, but also as a site of consumption, biodiversity

and cultural heritage. Whilst Holmes (2002, 2006) correctly

claims that a number of changes have already occurred in

Australian pastoral lands without reliance on changes of

values of pastoralists, it is suggested here that agricultural

actors also need to be engaged to continue to move away

from hardcore productivism and embrace greater environ-

mental conservation principles. However, in Australia,

landholders are experiencing conﬂicting messages and

market signals that ever-increasing productivity is required,

whilst at the same time they are increasingly subject to

regulations in relation to sustainable land management—

the recent reduction in tree clearing rights is a prime

example. At present, Australia’s landholders are generally

opposed to government interference in natural resource

management at the farm level and are resisting top-down

approaches to shift toward more sustainable practices,

concerning social, environmental and economic viability

(Richards et al., 2005).

Norwegian landholders have evidently been working in

collaboration through the farm lobby groups to ﬁnd a

common ground that serves Norway’s national interests.

From the farmers’ point of view, it is important that

Norway gains acceptance internationally in the WTO for

continued ﬁnancial support for agricultural production to

ensure survival of Norwegian family farming for the

purpose of maintaining the farms, the rural population

and the multiple values and functions agriculture produces.

At this stage it is believed that emphasising the multi-

functional role of agriculture might be the right way.

In conclusion, multifunctional agriculture requires sup-

port at the levels of agricultural actors, the public and the

state. There is little to be gained from an ideological

position of multifunctionality if there are still barriers to

the implementation of some of these key features of

multifunctionality at the property level. From this per-

spective, a sustainable multifunctional agriculture should

strive for a joint production of functions, not a splitting up

of functions where neoliberal ideals dictate a further

concentration of productivist-style production on farms

in favourable areas, whilst farms in agriculturally more

marginal areas are supported to produce amenity and

biodiversity outputs.

Arguably, Australian primary production is currently

situated toward a ‘weak’ end of a ‘multifunctionality

continuum’ and is constrained not only by the remote

location of many Australian properties but also the

overarching neoliberal political economy which serves to

send market signals that more raw commodities need to be

produced for farmers and pastoralists to remain competi-

tive in the global markets. At this stage, agricultural

multifunctionality in Australia rates weakly as an ideology

or policy and even less as a discourse or practice. It has

been demonstrated that the concept of multifunctionality

in Norwegian agriculture has thrived within a protectionist

setting with the support of the public, the state and

agricultural actors. In this sense it is very clearly a policy,

practice and discourse that aims to preserve and conserve

rural spaces, the cultural landscape, the farming way of life

and food safety.

7. Uncited References

OECD, 2001.

Acknowledgements

The anonymous reviewers are sincerely thanked for their

input which vastly improved this paper. The authors would

also like to thank Reidar Alma

˚s, Lynda Cheshire, Karoline

Daugstad and Geoff Lawrence for their comments. The

Australian Research Council, the Norwegian Research

Council and Department of Natural Resources and Water

(Queensland, Australia) are also thanked for their support

of this research. International collaboration on this paper

was made possible through a Rural Industry Research and

Development Corporation (Australia) travel grant and a

Graduate School Research Travel Award from The

University of Queensland, Australia.

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