Landscapes of agricultural appearance: non-productivist practices in Latvia’s marginal farmlands

In the era of post-productivism new practices of managing landscapes in non-productive way have rapidly emerged. In advanced economies, according to Wilson (2007), they are conceptualized as a set of thoughts and actions that has low farming intensity and productivity. In Latvia a variety of non-productivist actions have produced landscapes of mere agricultural appearance having different roles of support schemes and farmers’ and society’s attitudes in their maintenance, as well as different geographical locations. The majority of these landscapes are located in remote, marginalised areas, on less fertile soils, as well as in protected or peri-urban areas. Are they a justified ‘business-as-usual’ or just a short temporal phase in post-productivist transition?
This paper stems out of the research that explored the agricultural transition of former agro-polder landscapes that after the Soviet productivist agricultural regime have taken various development pathways. Drawing on the examples of non-productivist forms of Latvia’s agricultural wetlands, but also on agro-landscapes maintained purely for EU subsidies’ payments, hunting needs or tourism purposes, we will discuss socio-economic contexts, driving forces, as well as societal attitudes towards this extending phenomenon.
Non-productivist agro-polders nowadays are extensive agricultural lands (permanent grasslands and pastures), also abandoned agricultural lands, fallows, nature protection areas, usually located adjacent to ecologically sensitive lakes and large rivers. However, these agro-landscapes have nowadays become the arena where various stakeholder interests and policies meet. CAP-funded direct payments and agri-environment schemes, EU Cohesion funds for the renovation of infrastructure, national agricultural policies – they all are used to maintain the interests of landowners and agricultural sector in general. Also, there is the particular national attitude towards the agrarian ethnoscape that prioritizes agricultural land use over developments related to western environmental values or even afforestation (cf. Schwartz, 2006). The other actor in the stewardship of these polder landscapes is nature protection institutions that direct Birds Directive, Natura 2000 and other nature protection agendas towards actions to minimize agricultural impact and, in some cases, to revert them to wetlands or tamed wilderness areas. The latter has a strong resistance both locally (mainly by farmers and landowners) and in society in general. However, it is also symptomatic that this non-productivist pathway for agro-wetlands has a temporal character and is possibly due to the weakness of agro-policies in Latvia.
To conlude, we suggest that the term ‘non-productivist agricultural landscape’ and its theoretical application and practical implications could serve as a helpful concept for the advancement of understanding the basis of land use change.