Regional Value Creation in Border Regions - the Example of the Agri-Food Sector

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Tobias Chilla
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 514055700

The project reflects on what role borders and border areas play within multi-scale economic dynamics. What explains how cross-border value creation develops and which actors tend to benefit and which come under pressure? This question is operationalised with the example of food production. The project combines two prominent strands of research in human geography: Firstly, it is anchored in border studies. Secondly, the project takes an economic-geographical perspective. Here, it refers in particular to agri-food geography and the debate on global production networks with their focus on socio-institutional embedding. The operationalisation is based on two regional case studies, a) the Bavarian-Czech border area, where especially beverage production is significant on both sides of the border, and b) the German-Dutch border area, where the dairy and meat sectors play a significant role. The empirical operationalisation is based on a value-creation mapping and a governance mapping, which brings together and visualises heterogeneous types of data. Expert interviews play a central role with regard to data completion and calibration. The empirical approach is organised in an inductive manner. Variations of three constellations are to be expected: In the a) 'gateway' constellation, specific, border-related differences are significant for a section of the value added. In type b) 'small-scale integration’, a number of enterprises are spatially close to each other and functionally interdependent in the value creation process. In constellation c) 'back-to-back', companies are located in spatial proximity within the border area. Despite a vertical or horizontal proximity in the value creation process, however, there is only little or no functional interrelation. The border effects are not seen as spatially structural determinants. Rather, they are an expression of long-standing socio-institutional negotiation processes. The project promises fundamental insights into the spatial organisation of the food economy as well as into the European unification process.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants