Multifunctional agriculture in the Netherlands is on the up and up. This is the picture that emerges from a study by LEI and PPO, both part of Wageningen UR, into the turnover and impact of this form of agriculture. It is the second study into size and impact; the previous research was conducted in 2007. Both studies were commissioned by the Multifunctional Agriculture Taskforce.
Dutch farmers are generating more and more turnover from multifunctional agricultural activities. The total turnover from care farms, agricultural childcare, farm sales, agricultural nature management, recreation & tourism and farm education rose by approximately 28% in the period 2007-2009, from 322 million to 411 million euros. Agricultural nature management was faced with a reduction in subsidies and was the only sector to see its turnover fall.
More care farms
The sectors in multifunctional agriculture are doing well compared with total primary agriculture, which suffered a 3.4% fall in production value over the same period. The number of multifunctional agricultural businesses did not increase in the period 2007-2009. In some sectors, the number of firms fell while turnover increased. This was the case for firms offering recreation and farm sales. The care agriculture and agricultural childcare sectors did see an increase in the number of firms.
More professsional
Multifunctional farmers are becoming increasingly professional. This is reflected among other things in the number of farmers joining industry associations which impose quality requirements on their members such as the Verenigde Agrarische Kinderopvang (Associated Agricultural Childcare – VAK). Besides quality, the scale of multifunctional farming activities is also increasing. This increase in scale and professionalization are resulting in increased income.
Greater impact
The impact of multifunctional agriculture on society is greater than just the extra turnover generated at individual farms, so the impact study shows. Multifunctional farmers look after the landscape, welcome members of the public at their farms and work together intensively with other parties. In addition, they enjoy their work more than they did before, farms are made attractive to successors and the activities are often initiated by women. The effects on regional economies is not yet clear.
The study has been published in three reports and a publication:
LEI-publication 10-097: Perspective on multifunctional agriculture; Turnover and impact 2007-2009 (only in Dutch)
LEI-report 2010-063: Perspective on multifunctional agriculture; Developments per province (summary)
LEI-report 2010-064: Perspective on multifunctional agriculture; Turnover and scale (summary)
LEI-report 2010-065: Perspective on multifunctional agriculture; Investigation of impact (summary)