Multifunctional agriculture: an appealing and professional sector among citizens

Just think of it: ignore prevailing opinions about your type of agriculture and develop into a sector that wins admiration and achieves a substantial turnover within a couple of years. This is the success story of multifunctional agriculture, with Applied Plant Research (PPO) as a driving force.

Multifunctional agriculture is not new. Farmers have been providing society with services and products for ages. But new are the combinations farmers and growers are offering to meet the demands of citizens and which enables them to earn an income in a professional way. Examples are care farming, child care, recreation or education on the farm.

New image sector

With this professionalisation these farmers and growers completely changed the image of multifunctional agriculture. In the 1980’s and 1990’s they were regarded as ‘losers’ whereas now this form of agriculture is attracting entrepreneurial farmers and growers. The turnover of this sector exceeds the turnover of smaller sectors such as fruit or field vegetable cultivation.

These farmers and growers are not only meeting the demands of society. They themselves are benefiting as well because each single one states that their work gives them more pleasure. And they are also contributing to the regional economy by purchasing services and by offering citizens the possibility to get acquainted with agriculture.

Contribution research

With their research and support the scientists of PPO have contributed to the professionalisation of the sector.

And what have they been doing?

  • They identified the bottlenecks in the field of legislation and regulations and contributed to solving these bottlenecks
  • They helped farmers to develop more entrepreneurial skills
  • They produced figures that provide insight into the turnover of the sector
  • They have been helping in the search for possibilities to get new enterprises financed
  • They helped thinking about new forms of broader agriculture
  • They have demonstrated the size of the contribution of these enterprises to the regional economy

Further development of the sector continues. So does the support by the scientists. In doing so they cooperate closely with the different sub-sectors of multifunctional agriculture, such as associations and foundations in care farming, recreation, or child care.