Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on ‘Agriculture in peri-urban areas’
Date: 2004-09-16
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: farming sector, peripheral region, sustainable development, town and country planning, town planning, urban area

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— develop more flexible codes of conduct that result in eco-
friendly standardisation processes that primarily enable
facilitate the
SMEs to develop technical processes that
new products,
economically-viable
processes and services;

development

of

encourage an exchange of expertise amongst all stake-
holders in the standardisation process: CEN, CENELEC,
ETSI, NORMAPME, ANEC (consumers), TUTB (workers'
union), ECOS (environmental body), Industry, distribution
and services;

— provide a forum for discussion between the Lisbon Strategy
for developing the internal market and the European Envir-
onment and Health Action Plan 2004-2010 in order to

— support the development of basic technical standardisation
for quality products and processes in the agriculture and
food sector.

Brussels, 15 September 2004

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Roger BRIESCH

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on ‘Agriculture in peri-urban areas’

(2005/C 74/12)

On 17 July 2003, the European Economic and Social Committee decided to draw up an opinion, under
Rule 29(2) of its Rules of Procedure, on ‘Agriculture in peri-urban areas’.

The Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment, which was responsible for preparing
the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 6 July 2004. The rapporteur was Mr Caball i
Subirana.

At its 411th plenary session of 15 and 16 September 2004 (meeting of 16 September), the European
Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 132 votes in favour and three absten-
tions.

1. Introduction

1.1 A productive activity conditioned by the urban environment

1.1.1
Peri-urban areas have been discussed at various Euro-
including the European Economic and Social
pean forums,
Committee. This is a growing phenomenon that affects many
municipalities in the EU as a consequence of urban, industrial
and tertiary development and the spread of communication
and transport infrastructures, which are gobbling up prime
farming land and generating an increasing number of marginal
and uncompetitive agricultural areas.

Agricultural activity in peri-urban areas is conditional
1.1.2
on the urban environment in which it is practised, in the sense
that
the latter has negative repercussions for the former,
limiting its economic viability. Such negative repercussions are
the primary cause of environmental degradation in the area
relationship
and have a detrimental effect on the social
between city and country. Depending on how it is addressed
and resolved, this disjuncture between city and country can
seriously jeopardise the survival of agricultural activity itself.

1.1.3
In addition to the traditional problems facing peri-
urban agricultural areas, another more recent problem has now

emerged, namely the protection of free areas near cities, but
without agricultural activity. This new problem basically stems
from the idea that such areas should be some sort of ‘theme
park’, with the result that everything is artificial, decontextua-
lised and impersonal. The aesthetic criteria underlying this idea
are based mistakenly on biodiversity protection regulations or
an image of
the countryside that seeks to marginalise or
romanticise agricultural activity.

1.1.4
The EU's Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) stresses
the need for farms to diversify by exploring activities that will
generate new incomes for farmers. It must be emphasised that
without agriculture there is no agricultural landscape, that is, a
landscape characterised by fields of crops, animals, meadows
and, above all, farmers.

1.1.5
All of these factors (pressure from the urban environ-
ment, the idea of agriculture without farmers, the reform of the
CAP) raise serious problems for the continuity and stability of
are much more
peri-urban agriculture.
pronounced here than in other similar agro climatic areas,
which means there is a higher risk of agricultural activity disap-
pearing.)

(Such problems

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Besides the loss of suitable land,

1.1.6
farming in some
Member States suffers from a lack of clear legislation to regu-
late the land market and farm leases. With no market in farm-
land, it is harder for young people to enter farming and for
farm sizes to be increased. Many public and private landowners
are blocking the land market by refusing to rent land to profes-
sional farmers. This is a form of speculation which seriously
jeopardises the future of many peri-urban agricultural areas and
has to be tackled by the Member States through specific
preventive legislation.

1.1.7
Agricultural areas, which are not unaffected by the
changes that have taken place in rural communities in recent
years, are characterised by certain values and roles, which
determine the suitability or otherwise of activities carried out in
them.

1.2 Much more than merely an economic activity

The EESC, which has a direct interest in ensuring that
1.2.1
the economic, environmental and social development of
Europe's rural areas is sustainable, wishes to point out that the
environmental, social and economic role played by agricultural
areas is more important in peri-urban areas than elsewhere.
This is because in peri-urban areas agricultural land acts as a
green ‘lung’ for major cities; these areas are, moreover, a key
element in regional planning as they prevent the unlimited
growth of cities, fashion the landscape and give the urban
environment a human face. However, the economic role of
such areas – essential for the protection and future prospects of
agricultural land – is diminishing owing to urban pressure and
the lack of importance attached to farming in the economic
fabric of peri-urban areas.

According to the first principle of

1.2.2
the Salzburg
Conference, there is no farming without a living countryside,
and there is no living countryside without agriculture (1). The
EESC wishes to stress that the real protagonists of peri-urban
agricultural areas are, and indeed must be, essentially profes-
sional full-time farmers, while also recognising the important
role played by part-time farmers in many peri-urban areas.

1.3 Constraints and opportunities: agriculture in heterogeneous and

constantly-changing areas

they preserve the fundamental characteristics of

world;
former while integrating certain aspects of the latter.

the

1.3.2
The common characteristic of peri-urban areas is their
territorial, environmental and social fragility and the fact that
they are found on the peripheries of cities. It is the professional
farming practised in these areas that is known as ‘peri-urban
agriculture’. This professional
farming co-exists with other
activities linked to the growing of plants for recreational, thera-
peutic, educational and other reasons or for the purpose of
(landscape gardeners,
creating and maintaining landscapes
gardeners, etc.). Such activities are especially important in some
regions of the Member States.

1.3.3
Peri-urban areas are rural areas that face specific and
characteristic constraints that set them apart from other rural
areas, and whose survival is seriously threatened.

At the same time, peri-urban agriculture often presents
1.3.4
unique characteristics that must be exploited to the full, e.g. the
opportunities provided by its proximity to consumer markets,
growing consumer awareness of issues such as food quality and
safety, and social demand for new activities (leisure, training,
environmental education, ecotourism, etc.). These new comple-
mentary activities could help spread the entrepreneurial risk
and boost agricultural incomes.

1.3.5
Article 20 of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1257/1999
on support for rural development from the European Agri-
cultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) stipulates that
‘Less-favoured areas may include other areas affected by specific
handicaps, in which farming should be continued, where neces-
sary and subject to certain conditions, in order to conserve or
improve the environment, maintain the countryside and
preserve the tourist potential of the area or in order to protect
the coastline’, reinforcing the EESC's oft-repeated view that
peri-urban agricultural areas constitute ‘areas affected by
specific handicaps’.

1.3.6
have given further impetus to these guidelines.

Agenda 2000 and the recent CAP mid-term review

The EESC is aware that it is not easy to reach a unani-
1.3.1
mous definition of peri-urban areas as they are extremely
heterogeneous and constantly changing. Such areas are essen-
tially the interface between strictly rural areas and the urban

(1) Literally, ‘A living countryside is essential for farming, as agricultural
activity is essential for a living countryside.’ - Conclusions of the
second European conference on rural development in Salzburg, 12-
14 November 2003 – MEMO/03/236.

The preamble to the Conclusions of

1.3.7
the Salzburg
Conference stresses ‘the need to help European farmers take up
their multifunctional role as custodians of the countryside and
market oriented producers in all of the EU’ (2). This was echoed
in the EESC's own initiative Opinion (rapporteur: Mr Bros) on
The CAP second pillar: outlook for change in development
policy for rural areas (follow-up to the Salzburg conference). (3)

(2) See footnote 1.
(3) CESE 961/2004 – NAT/243

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2. Objectives for the conservation and development of

2.2.2 A cknow le dg i ng th e r ole of a g r i c u ltu r e i n t h e

peri-urban agriculture

r e lat i onsh i p be t w e e n ci t y a nd countr y

2.1
In the EESC's view, peri-urban agriculture undoubtedly
faces specific constraints stemming directly from characteristics
that can be easily identified and defined. Specific measures
must therefore be introduced for the conservation, planning
and management of peri-urban areas with agricultural activity.
To achieve this,
the EESC proposes that mechanisms and
instruments to conserve and develop peri-urban agricultural
areas should be promoted.

2.2 Objective 1: Social, political and administrative recognition that
peri-urban areas with agricultural activity are rural areas facing
specific constraints

In the EESC's view,

2.2.2.1
instrument
must be social, political and administrative recognition that
these rural/urban (i.e. peri-urban) areas with agricultural
activity face specific difficulties and play a key role in the
relationship between city and country.

the first essential

2.2.2.2
Recognition of peri-urban agricultural areas and the
agricultural activity practised in them is conditional on (a) a
study of the problems both facing and generated by these areas
and (b) a full analysis of the different values that they
encapsulate (water, landscape, biodiversity, architecture, agri-
cultural system, etc.) and of the economic, environmental
and social role that they are called upon to play as a result of
these values.

2.2.1 B olst e r i ng a n a c ti v e a n d p ow e r fu l ne t w or k of

‘i nter me di ate c i ti e s’

2.2.3 R a i si ng a w a r e ne ss a s a t ool for r e cog ni t i on

The EESC notes that

the ‘metropolitanisation’ of
2.2.1.1
Europe is a growing phenomenon resulting in an increase in
large cities and a constant and irreversible reduction in fertile
land, the main constraint on peri-urban areas, as pointed out in
its own-initiative Opinion (rapporteur: Mr Van Iersel) on Euro-
pean Metropolitan Areas:
for
Europe's future. (4)

socio-economic implications

2.2.1.2
This decline in agricultural activity has repercussions
not only for the agricultural sector but also for the maintenance
of natural resources, protection of the quality of life of city
dwellers and balanced land management.

2.2.1.3
From the point of view of a balanced and sustainable
Europe, the EESC stresses the need to bolster an active and
powerful network of ‘intermediate cities’, defined not so
much by their demographic size as by their role as a mediator
between rural and urban areas within their area of influence.

2.2.3.1
land is a
Society needs to understand that
limited natural resource and a common heritage that is diffi-
cult to recover once it has been destroyed. For this reason,
centripetal (inward) urban growth must be promoted through
programmes designed to restore and reclaim degraded urban
areas and obsolete industrial areas, as this will prevent the loss
of even more land to construction, and through specific legisla-
tion to stop speculation in the farmland on the periphery of
many European cities.

To ensure that such areas are given social, political
2.2.3.2
and administrative
the EESC
recognition across Europe,
proposes that a boost should be given to European action on
peri-urban agricultural areas and the agricultural activity
practised in them. Such action must recognise the values and
roles of such areas and prepare the way for each country to
draw up specific legislation on their protection and develop-
ment, based on common fundamental criteria.

2.3 Objective 2: Preventing peri-urban agricultural areas

from
becoming part of the urban process through regional planning,
urban planning and municipal initiatives

Such a network of cities

is only possible if
2.2.1.4
surrounded by agricultural and natural areas,
in short peri-
urban areas, that can act as buffer zones between built-up areas
and as corridors between natural areas, enhancing and consoli-
dating the personality of towns and cities, protecting biological
diversity and making viable agricultural production possible.

(4) CESE 968/2004 – ECO/120

The EESC believes that

2.3.1
to protect peri-urban agri-
cultural areas it is not enough for politicians and society as a
whole simply to pay lip service to the idea of preserving such
areas; it is also imperative that all the Member States have and
apply instruments for managing peri-urban agricultural
land in order to prevent the speculation that results in such
land being abandoned.

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2.3.2
ments must be created, underpinned by six pillars:

In the EESC's view, such land management instru-

practised can only be ensured by allowing local authorities to
play a key role, incorporating elements such as inter-muni-
cipal management as well as supra-municipal planning.

a) legal regional and urban planning instruments at Euro-
pean, national and regional level, and land use instruments
at national and regional level that take particular account of
peri-urban agricultural areas and agricultural policies and
make it difficult to reclassify farmland for other uses;

b) legal and transparent instruments to regulate situations in
which private or public landowners temporarily cease to
use land; professional farmers should be offered the oppor-
tunity to rent such land for the purposes of growing crops
and/or raising stock, thus helping to improve farm output;

c) avoidance of excessive taxation of land used for agriculture
in these areas, which should be taxed on the same basis as
urban industrial and/or residential land;

d) new and better initiatives at municipal level to reinforce
the subsidiarity principle (responsibility of local authorities
in all cases using
and politicians)
supra-municipal criteria based on inter-municipal coopera-
tion and territorial cohesion;

in municipal planning,

2.4.2
For this reason, peri-urban areas need to get together
and set up a body whose fundamental objective is not only
to protect but also to revitalise agricultural areas and agri-
cultural activity by means of supra-municipal plans for the
conservation, use and management of land.

2.4.3
The involvement of farmers in this body will ensure
that it is a genuine partnership, enabling them to promote
their objectives among local groups (general public and politi-
cians) and other interested partners (universities, environmen-
talists, etc.) and reach agreement on how agricultural areas
should be managed.

e) new criteria for municipal funding, such as the concept
of ‘protected agricultural areas’ in which the protection
of agricultural land takes precedence over urban occupation,
making it possible to reduce the dependence of municipal
funding from taxation on other criteria;

2.4.4 Managers of peri-urban areas must have a conservative
approach to the values represented by peri-urban agricultural
areas, but a progressive approach to proposals on how to
develop the role of such areas, adopting a positive, imaginative
and creative attitude. They must also strictly regulate land use
in such areas. In short, they must use sustainability criteria.

f) the mandatory and binding introduction of

‘agricultural
impact studies’ by the relevant agriculture administration
whenever action is planned in a peri-urban agricultural area
which could involve the loss of farmland.

In short, the aim is to use regional planning, urban
2.3.3
planning,
land use instruments, municipal funding and agri-
cultural impact studies to protect peri-urban agricultural areas
from the city's constant demand for land (for urban growth,
industrial and tertiary development, and communication and
energy infrastructures) and to prevent any land degradation
that could be used to discredit and justify the disappearance of
peri-urban agricultural areas.

A subsidiarity-based approach to the management of
2.4.5
peri-urban agricultural areas is essential to ensuring that the
authorities and farmers make a commitment to protecting and
developing such areas, in other words a contract for sustain-
able agricultural management between the public adminis-
tration and farmers.

2.4 Objective 3: Ensure the dynamic and sustainable development of
peri-urban agriculture and the areas in which it is practised

2.4.1
In the EESC's view, the dynamic and sustainable devel-
opment of peri-urban agriculture and the areas in which it is

2.4.6 Management must be based on a ‘cooperation
network’ between public and private stakeholders involved in
management, and headed by a ‘participatory and managerial
body’. This body must bring together common aims and inter-
ests, and instigate specific actions tailored to the particular area
and its natural resources (e.g. promoting its products, use of
information and communication technologies, encouraging
environmental education, preserving the countryside, etc.). In
short, a body which establishes the general conditions, moni-
tors their application and encourages measures to assist and
nurture peri-urban areas.

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It is a matter of following,

2.4.7
including in areas with
peri-urban agriculture, the approach proposed at the Salzburg
Conference, where it was stressed that ‘Future policy must main-
stream EU support for rural areas through bottom-up local partner-
ships’ [and] ‘More responsibility must be given to programme part-
nerships to define and deliver comprehensive strategies based on
clearly defined objectives and outcomes’ (sixth and seventh princi-
ples of the Conclusions of the Salzburg Conference) (5).

2.4.8
In addition to ‘contracts for sustainable agricultural
management’, consideration must also be given to supra-muni-
cipal management projects which, in view of the specific char-
acteristics of agricultural areas (rural-urban areas), must be
presented as ‘rur-urban’ projects between administrations and
managing bodies that protect and reclaim agricultural areas and
generate income by city and countryside working together. It is
imperative that some of the income derived from the non-agri-
cultural benefits generated by agricultural areas revert to the
farming community.

2.4.9
Such ‘rur-urban projects’ must be promoted by the
participatory and managerial bodies for peri-urban agricultural
areas and based on multi-sectoral criteria, including products
that respond to consumer demands, environmental elements
that limit the impact of productive activity on the environment
and create and maintain the landscape, and social elements that
respond to urban needs, such as using agricultural areas for
outdoor and educational activities.

Before the managerial bodies for peri-urban agri-
2.4.10
cultural areas draw up rur-urban projects and contracts for
agricultural management, the parties involved in managing
such areas (i.e. the authorities, in particular local authorities,
and the farming sector) must first draw up and approve an
institutional agreement on the need for an integrated style of
management.

2.4.11
This institutional commitment by local and supra-
local authorities and farmers could follow a series of general
principles laid down in a ‘Charter on peri-urban agriculture’.

3. Conclusions

3.1
Such rur-urban projects and the mutual commitment
documents must be based on criteria laid down in a city-coun-
tryside pact operated by the managing bodies and with
arrangements to promote participation by the general public
and the farming community. These pacts require the following
objectives to be met:

a) Objective 1: There must be a territorial conservation
and development project for areas with peri-urban agri-
culture. Such projects must be based on regional, urban and
land use plans, and on specific legislation to regulate the
market in farmland.

b) Objective 2: Peri-urban land must be kept in agri-
cultural use by means of
instruments and mechanisms
which guarantee this continued use, reducing as far as
possible urban pressure and land use for non-agricultural
activities, and to facilitate access to farmland.

c) Objective 3: An integrated form of management based on
a managerial body to promote and mobilise areas of peri-
urban agriculture and raise awareness of their value. This
must also ensure dynamic and sustainable development
through a commitment to manage land on the basis of rur-
urban projects and a contractual relationship between the
public, authorities and farmers in the form of a sustainable
agricultural management contract.

3.2

To meet these objectives, the following are essential:

a) Moves to encourage women and young people to parti-
cipate actively in territorial projects and agricultural
management contracts, to safeguard the present and future
status of these areas.

b) A public perception that

farming can guarantee food
follows environmentally friendly and

safety because it
socially responsible farming methods.

To further consolidate this charter and reinforce the
2.4.12
mutual commitment, a ‘sustainable management and devel-
opment plan’ could also be drawn up and adopted, setting out
principles, strategic guidelines and specific measures to protect
the values and develop the roles of a specific peri-urban agri-
cultural area.

(5) See footnote 1.

c) Recognition of the importance of water in consoli-
dating peri-urban agricultural areas. Specific legislation is
needed not to restrict the use of water for agriculture, but
rather to introduce a new ‘culture of water’ based on
limiting the use of surface water and groundwater and re-
using water produced by waste water treatment plants for
agricultural purposes.

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d) Bolstering these peri-urban agricultural areas through

g) Rational use of resources (in particular land, water and

society's recognition that they face specific difficulties.

landscape) and their protection.

e) Development of instruments and actions intended to raise
agricultural
increase the efficiency of infra-
structures and improve the provision of services to
farming.

incomes,

f) Promotion of production and marketing systems that
meet market demands, with special attention to the
food diversity by encouraging sustainable
promotion of
identity
farming which respects the environment, cultural
and animal welfare.

Brussels, 16 September 2004

In view of the precarious situation facing peri-urban
3.3
agricultural areas and European peri-urban agriculture as a
whole, the EESC believes it is essential to establish a European
observatory for peri-urban agriculture that not only has a
European perspective on peri-urban agricultural areas and the
agricultural activity practised in them, but also acts as a refer-
ence centre for monitoring, analysing and raising awareness of
the situation of peri-urban agriculture in Europe and a place
where local and regional authorities and different European
bodies can come together to discuss this issue, proposing initia-
tives for the conservation and development of these peri-urban
areas and their agriculture.

The president

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Roger BRIESCH