Trends and Challenges in Rural Development: German-Czech Workshop in Prague

The workshop was organised by the Thünen Institute for Rural Studies and the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The aim was to go beyond the narrative poles of ‘crisis’ or ‘Landlust’ and to discuss different development paths of rural areas and the changes in villages and small towns resulting from overarching societal changes. The participants from sociology, geography, ethnology as well as political and agricultural sciences discussed, among other things, on

• local efforts to make rural areas attractive as ‘arrival regions’ for different immigrant groups,
• the implementation of small-scale digitalisation efforts,
• social and spatial disadvantages and the importance of regional opportunity structures,
• new forms of housing and
• the increased public interest in nutrition, food production and self-sufficiency, as well as the resulting opportunities for small-scale supply networks.

As a result, the researchers concluded that the current societal challenges – from the pandemic to energy crisis to high inflation – with all their different and by no means unambiguous consequences for rural areas should not lead to neglect other existing structural challenges. These include, for example, demographic change, climate adaptation and mitigation, the thinning out and centralisation of facilities of general interest or the sharp rise in land and property prices.

The workshop was part of the German-Czech Strategic Dialogue on rural areas between the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Czech Ministries of Regional Development and Agriculture, which has been conducted with the participation of the Thünen Institute since 2019. The dialogue ended on 24 November 2022 with a meeting of political representatives in Prague.

Contact person: Dr. Annett Steinführer