Farmer’s Social Responsibility in Post-industrial Rural Development: A Challenge for the Twenty-First Century?

Abstract

Post-industrial rural development as one of the major fields of public policy remains challenging in the twenty-first century. The bottom-up activity of society, that actively entered the process of rural policy in the past decade, accelerated several new discourses in field. By questioning the underlying support principles and justification of the public value, created by farmers that are subject to the support, the general public elucidated the existing gap between multifunctionality and sustainability in agriculture. Some insights had been proposed to close the gap with the help of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This entails to perform a study concerning farmer’s social responsibility from a broader rural development perspective. The aim of this study is to explain farmer’s social responsibility as a challenge for the twenty-first century, as well as possible conceptual framework for meeting transformations of post-industrial rural development. Research results show that using the systemic approach towards on-going transformations in post-industrial rural development, farmer’s social responsibility originates alongside multifunctionality, endogenous development, place-based approach and network conceptions in relationships and interactions among agricultural stakeholders throughout the local and global value chains, and thus make an impact on social welfare and inclusive economic development issues next to the broadly discussed environmental concerns.