Too Important to Die, Too Small to Matter: Adaptation Strategies in Agriculture

• In Event: Comparative Political Economy of Food

Abstract

Recent contributions in the debate on growth models have analyzed sectoral adaptation strategies of such sectors that are either not part of the coalition (the social bloc) that runs and benefits from the underlying growth model or are affected negatively from the macroeconomic conditions that are needed to maintain it (e.g. Braun/Deeg 2018, Kohl/Spielau 2022). Baccaro et al. (2022) point out that sectors have distinct ‘policy requirements’ and therefore macroeconomic policies have sector-specific implications. As such, macroeconomic policies shape the distributions of earnings and profits across sectors by stimulating or depressing different components of aggregate demand, thus, shrinking or expanding them in relative terms in comparison to similar countries.

But how do sectors fare that are considered important politically or socially, but neither large enough to matter for the economy overall nor part of or in sync with the growth coalition that maintains the growth model? Next to the defense sector, the agricultural sector is the most important of such sectors, which is important nationally, but not because of its value-added contribution necessarily. Using Swenson dichotomy, one might ask whether the agricultural sector can be considered sheltered or exposed.

Therefore, this paper asks the question(s): can we observe national-level agricultural strategies? What types of differences are observed in European agricultural strategies? How have agricultural national strategies responded to increased agricultural market liberalization and increased competition, and why? We engage the complexity and variety of national strategies by studying two case studies of main agricultural products: dairy and wine in France and Germany.

To begin to engage these questions, we consider the case of place-based quality protections and French placed-based quality wine regulation specifically. Here we observe producers undertaking collective activities to strengthen differentiation in the face of increase market competition, especially as related to place-base differentiation, ecological practices, and/or a combination of these variables. We start here by comparing the strategies of two different French regions: Burgundy and the Loire Valley. We argue that these cases reflect examples of producer-led attempts to further deepen the linkage in quality French agriculture between place and quality. These initiatives influence the national character of French agriculture by providing new pathways for French quality agriculture differentiation. In the case of German wine, public attempts to regulate wine quality were less successful than private organizations, such as the Verband Deutscher Prädikats- und Qualitätsweingüter e. V. (VDP). This small, private club (only 200 members) of self-regulated quality producers employs a specifically Burgundian model of differentiation, i.e., a very narrow, specific place-based quality hierarchy.

In regard to dairy production, the national strategies diverge even further with German farmers engaging in exports of their products four times the French producers. We stipulate that parts of the German agricultural sector (especially in the North and Northeast) reacted to the competitive pressure by intensifying their production (using increased industrialization, automation, and consolidation) to create cost competitiveness and allowing to shift overproduction of products to go into exports. Parts of the agricultural sectors are thus emulating strategies from the core export industries. In France, protecting the agricultural sector from internationalization had been at the forefront of policy-makers.

Author

• Elizabeth Carter, University of New Hampshire