Conflict dynamics over farmland use in the multifunctional countryside

Recent research confirms the growing scale and frequency of land use conflicts. Such conflicts primarily affect rural areas and farmland due to urban expansion or transformations towards multifunctionality. This paper, therefore, aims to identify changes in the scale and structure of farmland use conflicts among the three main competing functions (production, consumption and protection) drawing upon Holmes’ conceptualisation of the multifunctional countryside. Unlike other research, based mainly on qualitative case studies, we use Shannon entropy and the administrative courts’ database in Poland to analyse farmland use conflicts in a quantitative approach. Our results show the growing dynamics and changing conflict structure observed in time and space but also, to some extent, depending on the composition and configuration of land functions. The findings also prove the importance of (EU, large-scale, nationwide) agricultural and environmental policies in increasing the number of conflict cases. A shift in the conflict line is observed from mainly production-consumption conflicts to conflicts within a single function (production-production) and production-protection conflicts. The changing structure of farmland use conflicts is shaped by the level of development of the production function considered in terms of size and ownership structures as well as its economic performance. In light of this study, land use conflicts, often perceived as socially undesirable, are not necessarily unfavourable, as they manifest a growing capacity to engage in dispute and include weak, forgotten or intentionally excluded actors in the process of building resistance.