Towards an institutional theory of multifunctionality

Abstract

Considerable research has been done on multifunctionality of agriculture in the last years. In this research, the concept of multifunctionality is described and interpreted in different ways depending on the perspective of the politician or a scientist in question. However, there is a core of this concept which is more or less equally acknowledged by all discussants. This is jointness of production of goods and services by agriculture and forestry. It is an open question whether the term jointness should be conceived of as existing within a production activity with a defined production function (e.g., cultivating wheat) or rather in an economic and social arrangement for organising a production programme defined by an institution (e.g., a family farm integrated in a network of cooperatives). In addition, the main interest is devoted to combination of commodities and non-commodities, or private and public goods (but sometimes also extended to other types of non-private goods such as club goods and common-pool resources). In principle, from these basic understanding of multifunctionality more detailed and more focussed interpretations and more differentiated concepts can be derived. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.