Suzan Christiaanse (p), Tialda Haartsen

In the debate about rural depopulation it is often assumed that the decline of facilities and services goes hand-in-hand with population decline. Hence, spatial policy for rural areas often focusses on access to basic services for food, education and health care in areas experiencing population decline. However, the actual changes in distribution and accessibility over time are almost never evaluated, and aggregated data often fails to account for subtle local changes. In this paper we aim to address this gap in research and policy and question the focus of the Dutch spatial policy for areas experiencing population decline, called ‘krimp’-regions, by mapping the changes in the distribution and access to certain basic facilities (schools, GP-practices and supermarkets), in GIS for the period 2000 to 2012 for the province of Fryslân. Even in this most rural province of the Netherlands, population decline is actually quite moderate when it is put in an international perspective. Nevertheless, demographic changes, increased mobility and economies of scale are causing changes in the rural-urban facility-structure, raising concern about access to basic services in smaller remote villages. We conclude that the distribution is changing, with the strongest decline of facilities in sm¬¬all villages, but accessibility is not as much affected as is often thought. There are no areas that can be considered ‘deprived’ of basic facilities and the major changes in access do not necessarily coincide with the areas marked by the government to expect the effects of population decline.

Natalia Szubska-Wlodarczyk (p)

Assuming the regional use of biomass, it may be an important source for energy, taking into account the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Past observations of the development of regional biomass markets in Poland generally conclude that the existing material potential is largely wasted. Therefore an attempt is made to identify the main barriers to the prosperity of these markets. In this study, the following research question will be addressed: What are the barriers hindering the development of regional agricultural biomass markets?
The aim of the study is to identify barriers and opportunities for the development of regional agricultural biomass markets in in the Lodz province. This paper attempts to confirm the following hypothesis: The barriers hampering the development of the agricultural biomass market in the Lodz province arise from the institutional and organizational conditions.
The prospects for the development of regional agricultural biomass market were determined based on questionnaire interview conducted on a representative sample of farms from the province of Lodz. The logit model was used for the analysis of regional development of agricultural biomass market in the Lodz province.
Questionnaire interviews conducted among the owners of farms in the Lodz province made it possible to identify these barriers on the supply side of agricultural biomass market:
- lack of agricultural biomass commodity surplus because farms use it for their own needs;
- inability to sell biomass at a profit;
- no guarantee of regular collection of raw material;
- lack of interest in biomass on part of the demand side of the market;
- lack of organized transport;
- lack of knowledge and access to information about innovative possibilities of energy use of biomass.

Wim Heijman (p), Thijs Schepman

This paper estimates the size of the Dutch Bio-Economy, based on its value added. Using consolidated input-output tables, the size of the Dutch Bio-Economy is estimated for the period 2008-2015 and future predictions are made for the period 2016-2020. During the period 2008-2015, the Dutch Bio-Economy has grown from 5.5% of the total Dutch value added in 2008 up to 6.6% in 2015. For future prediction, five scenarios are analysed, with projected growth of the Bio-Economy ranging from 6.87% of total value added on the low end to 8.48% on the high end in 2020.