The agricultural expertise system and the powerful agricultural interests that characterise the Netherlands have changed a great deal during the past 20 years. In a report published today, Wageningen UR concluded that the system is well prepared for the future due to its capacity for adaptation.
The special interest groups appear to be having difficulty. A portion of the policy has been internationalised and is no longer decided exclusively by the agricultural community. Responsibility for another part of the policy has been transferred to the region. Due to individualisation, increasing competition and mergers in the agro-industry, there is less and less room for a collective approach.
The business community is also becoming internationalised and is no longer exclusively dependent upon Wageningen for its expertise. Research is internationalising as well, and is increasingly being conducted in the framework of the European Union. In addition, there are periodic reorganisations within the universities and research institutes, and new initiatives are being taken.
These developments have elicited the question: is the agro-expertise system still future-resilient? Researchers from the Wageningen institutes LEI, Alterra and AFSG have attempted to answer this question by analysing historical developments in this area and describing them in a model. They then interviewed 11 key figures from the past and present, including several ex-ministers and product board chairman. Finally, they conducted a scenario analysis. This entire process led them to the conclusion that sufficient experimentation is taking place within the agricultural expertise system in response to the changing environment.
The sector had – and still has – a powerful special interest network that operates through the agricultural organisations, the product boards and politics. This ensures that the problems faced by the sector are still being transposed into socially relevant research tasks. As a result, collective means are still available for investments in the agricultural expertise system, which supports the long-term competitive position of the Dutch agricultural sector.
The fact that the agricultural expertise system is still sufficiently robust does not take away from the fact that various components of the system can easily fall out of step; this is because the individual components focus primarily on their own developments. The authors of the report therefore recommend that the developments in the agricultural expertise system be periodically discussed by the leaders of the Dutch agricultural sector, resulting in clearer guidance of the developments within that system.