This paper builds on the outcomes of a state-of-the-art review of research for the European research project MULTAGRI, with a particular focus on the conceptualisation of Multifunctional Agriculture (MFA) from a 'supply side' perspective. It argues that a consistent and satisfactory conceptual...

The paper proposes to contribute to the growing literature on the practise and significance of multifunctional agriculture, drawing on an empirical study of 50 farms located in Central Italy and Sicily. The paper intends, in particular, to identify and analyse the ways that multifunctionality...

Short food supply chains (SFSCs) are economic organizations which can contribute to rural development. We propose a first analysis of their main features and suggest a way for analysing them through the lens of organizational economics. SFSCs are based on proximity between consumers and...

Paper aims analysing the situation of rural areas of Lithuania as well as support got from the budget of European Union facilitating the development of rural areas. Paper comprises three chapters. The rural areas are of substantial importance in terms of both surface area and population. At the...

The objective of this article is to assess labour income and employment effects in Romania coming from rural development and structural policies defined in the proposed 2007-09 EU accession financial package. The methodology used is based on a multiregional I-O model derived by a three-stage...

The paper is based on data from a questionnaire survey (interviews) conducted in the western part of Poland on 183 rural tourism and agri-tourism small and medium enterprises. The classification of enterprises was based on the methodology proposed by Wysocki (1996) and included the k-means...

The aim of this research was to study empirically what characterize farms and farmers that choose to develop the milk production at their farms. The background was that several farms have exited milk production, which threatens both goals about rural development and also the activities of the...

This case study evaluation aims to explore employment impacts of the reformed East Wales RDP in East Wales, a UK region which is highly spatially differentiated. It concentrates on analysis of documentary evidence and representative in-depth interviews which support an evaluative interpretation...

One of the common strategies in rural development programmes is to support the adoption of new on-farm activities. The rationale behind this is that farm diversification is a way to assure an appropriate level of income for the farmers. Through interviews with 49 relatively small farmers, the...

The ‘LEADER community initiatives’ and the ‘LEADER approach’ have been commonly accepted as an innovative way for development of rural areas in the EU. It is widely assumed that promoting growth in rural areas can be achieved through partnerships between representatives of three classes...