To Whom Belongs the Future of Rural Prosperity 2020+?

The broad society had already issued the question about the EU support distribution principles for agriculture of ongoing period with regard to chief beneficiaries from direct payments and other support measures. The changing understanding of responsibilities, which arise alongside the farming activities, keep shaping the industrial meaning of agriculture as public goods' provider. This study argues that the upcoming EU agriculture 2020+ will inevitably be guided by much broader understanding of ‘innovating', ‘networking' and ‘giving back to society'. The key driver of success in the upcoming period will be innovations, especially in its soft, i.e. social, sense, which will enable networked collaboration between the small and flexible in the countryside, and the smart and quick in the city. Based on original empirical data, collected in Lithuanian in 2017, this study gives evidence for the variety of activities in the name of ‘innovating', ‘networking' and ‘giving back to society' in the countryside are most often the work of small farmers, in contrast to the large ones, despite the actual amounts of absorbed EU support. Therefore, it is suggested to broaden the variety of support schemes for the EU agriculture 2020+, focusing on small innovative farms, that ‘gives back to society' and thus adds more to prosperous rural development