Regional differences in the determinants for structural change in German agriculture

In Germany agricultural land use is very heterogeneous with respect to management orientation and productivity even at local level. Also the rate of structural change shows a wide variation. While for a limited number of factors (e.g. farm size) a stable relation to structural change could be widely confirmed for different parts of Germany, the results for other indicators are contradictory. This holds especially for indicators describing to the marginality of a site. Many concerns related to structural change and development of land use intensity, e.g. abandonment of high nature value farmland, are only relevant in a very specific local context. Therefore, it is necessary to establish indicators for farm development on a disaggregated level. This paper evaluates the stability of the relation between a set of explanatory variables and the rate of structural change at different spatial scales. Our results indicate that only for a few variables (farm size, gross margin per ha, stocking density and productive orientation of the local stock) a generally valid link between them and the rate of structural change can be established. For the majority of the explanatory variables, their respective impact on structural change depends on the regional context.