Foreword and Acknowledgements

With gains in agricultural productivity leading to a dramatic reduction in farm employment, rural regions across the OECD now depend on a wide range of economic engines for growth. Increasing globalisation, improved communications and reduced transportation costs are additional drivers of economic change in rural areas. Traditional policies to subsidise farming have not been able to harness the potential of these economic engines. In 2006, the OECD published a thematic report The New Rural Paradigm: Policies and Governance, which seeks to explain the shift in rural development policies to account for these important economic changes and the need for a new approach to governance.