TY - JOUR
T1 - Evidence of resilience capacity in farmers’ narratives
T2 - Accounts of robustness, adaptability and transformability across five different European farming systems
AU - Nicholas-Davies, Pip
AU - Fowler, Susan
AU - Midmore, Peter
AU - Coopmans, Isabeau
AU - Draganova, Mariana
AU - Petitt, Andrea
AU - Severini, Simone
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported by the European Commission (Horizon, 2020; grant 727520 ). The funding source had no influence on contents or submission of this article.
Funding Information:
Opportunities in the form of land becoming available (rare in Flanders but more common in Northeast Bulgaria and East Anglia), new markets opening up (a poultry enterprise in Northeast Bulgaria), capital being available (Central Italy farming couple who previously held high paying city jobs) and policy support (SAPS payments in Northeast Bulgaria) all resulted in robustness responses. These openings allowed business continuity with only minor to moderate changes in structure. In examples specific to Bulgaria, policy uncertainty (CAP after the current period) and labour shortages resulted in two Northeast Bulgarian farmers choosing to consolidate and stabilize their existing business enterprises, rather than to develop or expand.This work is supported by the European Commission (Horizon, 2020; grant 727520). The funding source had no influence on contents or submission of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2021/12/1
Y1 - 2021/12/1
N2 - Understanding how farmers perceive and manage critical decision points in response to challenges and opportunities can help to develop effective support for resilient European farming systems. Individual narratives of farm stories provide insight into important management changes over time and the context in which they were made. We analyse 46 personal narratives from family farms across a range of farming systems in five European countries and use comparative thematic analysis to identify these change drivers and responses to them. Pressures within the family and the farming business (caused by health problems or intergenerational transition) were more important to narrators than external drivers such as extreme weather events and price fluctuations. The latter, perceived as outside the control of the farmer, were regarded as background noise requiring no significant business changes. While different resilience responses (robustness, adaptation, and transformation) were revealed, these categories were fluid depending on individual capacities, farm resources and the overall setting. Farms could appear robust but, over time, small changes in management could cumulate to adapt or even transform the management and scope of the business. Policy-related conclusions include a need for more flexible, tailored farm support and more coherent long-term strategies to manage intergenerational transition on farms.
AB - Understanding how farmers perceive and manage critical decision points in response to challenges and opportunities can help to develop effective support for resilient European farming systems. Individual narratives of farm stories provide insight into important management changes over time and the context in which they were made. We analyse 46 personal narratives from family farms across a range of farming systems in five European countries and use comparative thematic analysis to identify these change drivers and responses to them. Pressures within the family and the farming business (caused by health problems or intergenerational transition) were more important to narrators than external drivers such as extreme weather events and price fluctuations. The latter, perceived as outside the control of the farmer, were regarded as background noise requiring no significant business changes. While different resilience responses (robustness, adaptation, and transformation) were revealed, these categories were fluid depending on individual capacities, farm resources and the overall setting. Farms could appear robust but, over time, small changes in management could cumulate to adapt or even transform the management and scope of the business. Policy-related conclusions include a need for more flexible, tailored farm support and more coherent long-term strategies to manage intergenerational transition on farms.
KW - Adaptation
KW - Biographical narratives
KW - Farm resilience
KW - Social-ecological systems
KW - Transformation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85113169623&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.07.027
DO - 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.07.027
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85113169623
SN - 0743-0167
VL - 88
SP - 388
EP - 399
JO - Journal of Rural Studies
JF - Journal of Rural Studies
ER -