Thünensche Rings
The Thünenschen rings describe the agricultural land use of an ideal typical region. In this ideal-typical model, the transport costs are the influencing factor that essentially justifies the land use of a particular region. The Mecklenburg landowner Johann Heinrich von Thünen founded the regional economy with his work “The Isolated State”, published in 1826 , his “Rings” are an early economic geographic location theory .
model
Thünen assumes that the agricultural products are not consumed or processed at the place of their production, but that they are transported to a customer. This results in transport costs that increase with increasing distance and also depend on the volume and weight of the goods. In the early 19th century (apart from ships) only horse-drawn vehicles were used to transport goods. In his model, Thünen assumed that a horse-drawn vehicle not only had to take the goods to be transported, but also animal feed for the horses.
In the Thünenscher Ring model, farmers maximize their profit by producing those goods on which they can achieve the highest possible return. This return is the result of the market price minus the labor and transport costs that are required to produce and supply these goods. For example, a fruit farmer near a big city can sell fresh apples on the market, a fruit farmer from a distant region would have to sell his apples as dried fruit in order to save transport costs.
Agricultural use in the 19th century
In the early 19th century, these conditions resulted in circular zones of agricultural use that were concentric around the point of sale:
- In the first circle, the free economy dominates . In theory, all goods could be produced in this zone, but predominantly perishable goods or goods that are expensive to transport are produced.
- Due to the high transport costs, this is followed by a forestry zone , which supplies firewood in the area closer to the city and timber in the more distant areas.
- This is followed by a crop rotation zone . Intensive arable farming is carried out here, alternating between leaf and stem crops .
- This is followed by a zone of paddock farming , in which the land is used alternately as arable land or pasture .
- The fifth zone is dominated by three-field farming, the most extensive form of fallow cereal cultivation.
- In the outermost area, the transport costs exceed the profits from the grain industry, so only cattle can be farmed here, the products of which can bear the transport costs due to their high value.
Todays situation
The construction of roads and canals distorted the transport costs to such an extent that the ideal-typical representation of the Thünen's rings did not correspond to reality. With the invention of the railroad, transport costs fell disproportionately.
Due to the extensive expansion of the infrastructure , the factor of transport costs has lost importance in the industrialized nations. Fast means of transport and refrigeration technology now enable the transport of perishable goods even over long distances, and by reducing transport costs, low-value bulk goods can now be transported over long distances. The urban forest has also lost its original function and is now used more for local recreation , while most of the timber is supplied from the global economic periphery . Thanks to new energy sources, firewood has largely lost its importance.
In developing countries with poorly developed infrastructure, the Thünens model can still be valid today.
literature
- Asmus Petersen: Thunen's Isolated State. Agriculture as a link in the national economy . Berlin 1944
- Ulrich van Suntum : The Thünen rings . In: Wirtschaftswwissenschaftliches Studium (WiSt), 9th year, issue 8 (August 1980), p. 383
- Heinz Rieter (ed.): Johann Heinrich von Thünen as an economic theorist . (= Studies on the Development of Economic Theory; 14 / Writings of the Verein für Socialpolitik, Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften; NF, 115). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1995
- Heinrich Wiskemann: The ancient agriculture and the von Thünen law. Explained from the ancient writers . Hirzel, Leipzig 1859 ( digitized version )