Revitalizing agriculture: Farming economically as starting ground for rural development

Many of the attempts to construct snstainable rural livelihoods involve a s hift away from agriculture's traditional 'core' activities hy means of a di versification with new on-farm activities or 'conversion' to quality modes of production. This raises the question of how we should conceptualize the role of those enterprises that fall into the vast category of 'main-stream' farms within the process of rural development. By discussing the style of 'farming economically' in Friesian dairy farming, this paper argues that ru ral development should not be seen as a contradiction between conventional and alternative farming systems. Farming economically is considered an inte gral part of the newly emerging model of rural development, since it entail s a particular model for the mobilization, combination and utilization of r esources at farm level that contrasts sharply with the modernization paradi gm. At the level of the rural region, farming economically allows for highe r income and employment levels, factors that are fundamental for a healthy, rural social fabric. The paper concludes that for the rural development po tential of farming economically to be developed further a favourable 'rural district' is needed that strengthens the innovativeness and specific devel opmental trajectory embedded in the practice.