The marketing of Rhöngold milk: an example of the reconfiguration of natural relations with agricultural production and consumption

As late as the first half of the 20th century, the moderately mountainous area of the Rhön has been considered as the Armenhaus (poor peoples home) of Germany. Relative poverty and even food scarcity have been quite common. Physical conditions for farming are very marginal due to a high altitude, light soils, a rather harsh climate and a short growing season. Until the late 1980s the rate of farm abandonment and the proportion of younger people leaving the area has been significantly higher than in most other rural areas in Germany. In the late 1980s and particularly in the course of the 1990s, however, the rather negative image has almost been reversed. The region is now seen in terms of providing a model of sustainable (rural) development. This paper examines the developments in society that have led to this re-evaluation of regional conditions. Reference is made to food quality, the reassessment of the use of natural resources, the perception of the quality of living conditions in rural areas and the idea of sustainability. It is concluded that agriculture and, more generally, the potential of rural areas, are no longer being evaluated in monofunctional terms, and that, as a result, more industrial forms of agricultural production have lost a substantial part of their credibility and prestige. In contrast, the more traditional, less intensive and more diversified forms of agriculture are now esteemed, because they tend to be better adapted to natural conditions and because of their more favourable linkages with an integrated development of rural areas. The final section of the paper examines the theoretical implications of the case study in terms of the reconstitution of nature-society relations. Reference is made to the redefinition of ‘production’, the rediscovery of the multifunctionality of agriculture, the interconnectedness in agricultural and rural development and the active construction of synergies at farm household, farm and regional level in rural development initiatives.