Property development in the countryside: "In the storm centre of agricultural policy and rural development"

In Denmark rural areas is undergoing af rapid change from pure agriculture and forest to a mix between still bigger industrial farms and properties and small holdings for housing only, parttime farming and small industries in former agricultural buildings.

In the seventies the national policy was focusing on the protection of valuable arable land from changing to parttime and distant farming, urban growth, infrastructure and Afforestration. Now thirty years after the clear distinction between urban and rural areas has been politically abandoned. Rural areas is open for more urbanization in the form of housing and trade, industry different from agriculture.

This integrated urbanization and industrialization of rural areas is a new challenge for chartered surveyors in Denmark. The surveying profession and their capacity of advisory to the owners of holdings in the countryside play a central role in transformation of ownership to land and properties.

Field studies have documented how the individual expanding farmers acts strategically in the local battle of more land to build up a still more productive and efficient agricultural enterprise.

The raising demand for land is also catalysed by the new land policy for nature reconstruction, afforrestration and ground water protection.