The Political Geography of EU Agricultural Policy Adjustment

This paper provides an historical context to policy reform and agricultural adjustment within the EU, primarily through examining the development of policy concerns and issues in the UK. It suggests that, notwithstanding the emergence of a common policy for European agriculture there is still considerable scope for national, regional and local difference, based on the different cultural, political and geographical circumstances of member states. The paper examines how the underlying rationale for a common policy, built around the notion of family faming, is being supplanted by a new public justification for intervention based on rural development and agri-environmental distinctiveness.