Succession of Stem Families in Rural Japan: Cases in Yamanashi Prefecture

The aim of this paper is to clarify how Japanese rural families have continued and changed from a viewpoint of generational succession. The survey from which data was collected was conducted principally in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan. Three main points will be focussed on: members, property, and ideology. Almost 40% of family members surveyed continued to live together with their parents after marriage. However, they did not necessarily succeed the family farm. The ways in which they live together and farm their land have become more diverse. It is still very common for the entire family property to be inherited and succeeded by only one child in accordance with the Ie system. Despite the fact that family structure is changing greatly in present times, many farming families continue to adopt this system of inheritance. Ideologies concerning ceremonial matters and human relationships remain strong, but have weakened with regard to land inheritance. Our results suggest that the family's desire for succession was stronger in cases where multiple generations cohabited.     

Farm persistence and adaptation at the rural–urban interface: Succession and farm adjustment

Despite assumptions that agriculture will automatically go into a mode of decline at the Rural Urban Interface (RUI), official statistics suggest that agriculture as a whole remains a strong (and in some cases a growing) industry in many U.S. RUI counties. RUI scholars have acknowledged internal family dynamics can significantly influence farm persistence and adaptation strategies, however, few studies have sought to document the specific role succession has on farm structure at the RUI. Building off rural geography models of farm organization at the RUI and succession research embedded in rural studies we analyze interviews from 33 U.S. farm families to 1) explore the relationship between farm adaptation and succession at the RUI, and 2) examine how succession is related to the different types of enterprises found at the RUI (direct marketers vs. commodity producers) and the types of growth strategies these farm families implement. We find that families who can not identify an heir either disinvest or enter a static management mode. Among farm families who can identify an heir we identify a variety of horizontal and vertical growth strategies (expanding, intensifying, and entrepreneurial stacking) designed to achieve farm reproduction goals. We discuss the theoretical and policy related implications of this research.     

The redefinition of family farming: agricultural restructuring and farm adjustment in Waihemo, New Zealand

The process of agricultural restructuring embarked upon by the New Zealand government in the mid-1980s precipitated a period of financial hardship for many of the nation's farmers. It was not uncommon for families to adapt major adjustment strategies in order to maintain the viability of their enterprise at this time. Drawing upon a detailed case study of farm-level responses in a small rural locality, this paper argues that farm adjustments employed during and since this period have altered the character of family farming in the area in fundamental ways. Such change has been evident in the increasing heterogeneity of farm structure, and the alteration of farming goals and household labour arrangements, together with the evolution of local cultural norms. These transformations not only raise important questions about the future structure and sustainability of family farming in the area, but also inspire a conceptual reconsideration of the family farm unit as traditional linkages between the farm enterprise, household and property are weakened.     

Gender,class and rurality: Australian case studies

The interrelationship between gender and class in rural spaces has received little attention. While rural scholars have focused on the implications for class from processes of gentrification and agricultural and rural restructuring, these analyses have remained largely ungendered. Similarly, feminist rural studies have rarely explored subjectivity as gendered and classed. This paper contributes to rural theories of class and gender by drawing on the work of contemporary feminist class theorists to explore class as gendered and inscribed through personal memory, community narrative and through everyday values and interactions associated with work, leisure and family. To explore intersections of gender, class and rurality, the article draws on data from interviews from two separate Australian studies of farming families. Narratives highlighted the ambiguity of class, the gendered and classed nature of voluntary organisations in rural spaces, and moral values and signifiers associated with what it is to be a ‘good’ farmer and a ‘good’ community member. The data indicate how values of moral worth are gendered and classed and inscribed on farming women and men. This qualitative examination of gender and class in rural spaces draws attention to class as being more than a ranking on an occupational scale, property ownership or degrees of engagement in consumption. Rather, it reveals class as emotionally inscribed in ways that are gendered, economic and moral, and represented through symbolic signifiers and cultural narratives.     

Gender relations and the family farm in Western Europe

The paper focuses upon the impact of changing relations between farmers and spouses in the context of the restructuring of the rural economy and increasing female participation in labour markets. It is based upon a study of the connections between the succession process in agriculture and family relationships [Blanc, M. and Perrier-Cornet, P. (1989) Renouvellement des forces de travail et formes de production familiales en agriculture (les installations d'agriculteurs au cours de la decennie soixante-dix). Montpellier, INRA, Departement d'Economie et de Sociologie Rurales, Montpellier]. It argues that for farmer's wives, off-farm work, participation in other farm-based enterprises and occupational status result from a negotiation of power relations within the farm operating couple. Such changes are bringing about a distinct form of pluriactivity among farm families, with an emerging trend towards husbands being occupied full-time on-farm and wives off-farm.The paper deals with the future of family farming in connection with these changes. The role played by the ideology of family farming in sustaining these emerging forms of production is examined. The individuation of aspirations, especially for women, is considered an important factor in terms of labour market involvement. However, it is argued that the resolution of the impact of such changes on the domestic sphere and the farm is dependent upon a process of negotiation between the farmer and spouse.     

From stress to distress: Conceptualizing the British family farming patriarchal way of life

‘Rural stress’ and ‘farming stress’ are terms that have become commonly appropriated by British health-based academic disciplines, the medical profession and social support networks, especially since the agricultural ‘crises’ of B.S.E. and Foot and Mouth disease. Looking beyond the media headlines, it is apparent that the terms in fact are colloquial catch-alls for visible psychological and physiological outcomes shown by individuals. Seldom have the underlying causes and origins of presentable medical outcomes been probed, particularly within the context of the patriarchal and traditionally patrilineal way of life which family forms of farming business activity in Britain encapsulate. Thus, this paper argues that insufficient attention has been paid to the conceptualization of the terms. They have become both over-used and ill-defined in their application to British family farm individuals and their life situations. A conceptual framework is outlined that attempts to shift the stress research agenda into the unilluminated spaces of the family farming ‘way of life’ and focus instead on ‘distress’. Drawing upon theorization from agricultural and feminist geography together with cultural approaches from rural geography, four distinct clusters of distress originate from the thoughts of individuals and the social practices now required to enact patriarchal family farming gender identities. These are explored using case study evidence from ethnographic repeated life history interviews with members of seven farming families in Powys, Mid Wales, an area dominated by family forms of farming business. Future research agendas need to be based firmly on the distressing reality of patriarchal family farming and also be inclusive of those who, having rejected the associated way of life, now lie beyond the farm gate.     

Understanding the strategic decisions women make in farming families

Decision-systems theory (DST) was developed from in-depth interviews with farming families and provides an interpretation of the processes farming families use in making strategic decisions in regard to the family members, the farm and the businesses the farming family run. Understanding the nature and justifications used for different decisions can help farming families improve their strategic decision making. When combined with the 4-group stakeholder model, DST can help policy developers appreciate what kinds of policies are most likely to influence the decisions farming families make. Family decisions are a result of ongoing negotiation processes within the family. An additional set of interviews with farming women provided insight into women's contributions to family decision-making processes. Their contributions are discussed in terms of the concept of lenses which is one of five concepts in DST. Women make particular contributions in four of the five lenses in the concept for lenses. This leads to the conclusions that, in terms of improving the technical and economic aspects of farming, policy developers should develop new pathways of providing relevant information to women farmers. And, in terms of implementing sustainable development ideals to improve future rural livelihoods, policy developers ought to work closely with farming women as their contribution to strategic decisions in this area is very important.     

Farming Patterns,Rural Restructuring,and Poverty: A Comparative Regional Analysis1

Abstract This study examines the contentions of two recent perspectives on rural economic organization and their implications for poverty. Building from (1) agrarian political economy and (2) the rural restructuring literatures, we present a comparative regional analysis of how farming patterns and other aspects of economic organization differentially affect poverty in rural areas. Data are based on 2,349 nonmetropolitan U.S. counties for the 1970–1980 period. Nonhired labor-dependent, family-operated farming (smaller and larger family farming) has relatively similar cross-regional effects on rural poverty. The effects of industrialized farming are more spatially variant, suggesting that this type of farming is integrated into regional political economies in different ways than are simple commodity units. However, farming patterns have only a small effect on rural poverty relative to other factors, such as the local employment structure, characteristics of the population, and geographic location. The results of this study highlight the need to move beyond the farm sector to understand both the dynamics of this sector and the socioeconomic consequences of rural restructuring. More broadly, the study underscores the importance of testing general sociological relationships under different spatial (e.g., regional) contexts.     

Some responses to economic change in Scottish farming and crofting family life, 1900–25

Our investigation of some of the processes involved in the emergence of ‘the modern family’is based on evidence from oral histories conducted with people who grew up in Scottish farming and crofting families in the early decades of the century. After showing how peasant and capitalist modes of production shaped both family structures and strategies for getting a living, we examine some of the ways in which the encroachments of the cash economy helped create new forms of gendered inequalities. Our discussion concludes with an analysis of recent papers concerned with the ways in which families are embedded in community life and the implications for long term change in authority structures.     

The Differing Values of Multigeneration and First‐Generation Farmers: Their Influence on the Structure of Agriculture at the Rural‐Urban Interface

Recognizing the inherent pressures on farm families and farmland, USDA has been developing policies and programs that simultaneously attempt to retain existing farm families on the landscape, recruit new farmers, and create lasting economic opportunities rooted in agriculture. In this article we argue that to date there has been an overemphasis on economic and structural approaches and a systematic discounting of the way individual farmer and farm household motivations can differ as they relate to the farm household life cycle, enterprise growth, adaptation, and reproduction. We use a sociological lens to qualitatively and quantitatively examine the social differences between multigeneration and first‐generation farmers at the rural‐urban interface by exploring how economic and noneconomic values influence succession plans and enterprise structure. We find that the answers to these questions are complex, layered, and not static, as farm households cycle through the life course. We describe how the differences between young and old multigeneration and first‐generation farmers can influence the structure of agriculture at the rural‐urban interface, and conclude with some practical policy recommendations.     

Children and the Modern Farming Movement

In the twenty‐first century, a small percentage of U.S. children have ties to family‐based agriculture. Yet with the rise of the modern farming movement that emphasizes local and family‐based production, new spaces may exist for involving children and youth in farming. This article focuses on the social value of children to family‐based agriculture in the contemporary era. Drawing on a qualitative study of families that farm in the capital region of New York—an epicenter for the modern food movement—we consider why families farm, how they involve children in their farms, and how they understand children's contributions. Interviews with 76 adult members of 50 families show children to be central to families' goals; they often rationalize farming as a lifestyle choice undertaken for the benefit of their children. Families also actively involve their own children—and other people's children—in their farms. By documenting the way families talk about children and farming, we shed light on the logic used to incorporate children into modern productive enterprises. The centrality of children, we argue, helps explain the success of the modern food movement and the persistence of family‐based agriculture despite conditions that make it economically difficult to accomplish.     

“Tractorettes” or Partners? Farmers' Views on Women in Kansas Farming Households

In the United States, for various reasons, fewer farm families rely solely on their farming operations for their livelihoods. As the structure of agriculture changes and farm families adjust their livelihood strategies, do the discourses around gender relations in households also change? This article analyzes the portrayal of women's roles in farming households by drawing on interviews with Kansas field crop farmers, primarily regarding their land‐use decisions, but also inquiring about their farms and communities. The article addresses the following question: How do farmers' discourses compare to Brandth's (2002a) categorizations of three dominant discourses in the literature on gender in European family farming—the discourse of the family farm, the discourse of masculinization, and the discourse of detraditionalization and diversity? While Brandth finds the discourse of the family farm prevalent in the literature, overall, the discourse apparent from 30 farmer interviews is more characteristic of detraditionalization and diversity. Although men are primarily the principal operators in farming, overall, women were not portrayed simply as helpers. Rather, their roles are depicted as diverse and important to farm operations.     

Rural Agricultural Change and Fertility Transition in Nepal

Using longitudinal panel data from the Western Chitwan Valley of Nepal, this study examines the impact of the use of modern farm technologies on fertility transition—specifically, the number of births in a farm household. Previous explanations for the slow pace of fertility transition in rural agricultural settings often argued that the demand for farm labor is the primary driver of high fertility. If this argument holds true, the use of modern farm technologies that are designed to carry out labor‐intensive farm activities ought to substitute for farm labor and discourage births in farm families. However, little empirical evidence is available on the potential influence of the use of modern farm technologies on the fertility transition. To fill this gap, the panel data examined in this study provide an unusual opportunity to test this long‐standing, but unexplored, argument. The results demonstrate that the use of modern farm technologies, particularly the use of a tractor and other modern farm implements, reduce subsequent births in farm households. This offers important insight for understanding the fertility transition in Nepal, a setting that is experiencing high population growth and rapidly changing farming practices.     

“It's Definitely a Good Time to Be a Farmer”: Understanding the Changing Dynamics of Successor Creation in Late Modern Society

This article considers the implications of the wider systemic shift from modernity to late modernity for the process of intergenerational farm transfer. The article argues that the shift from the collective to the individual, indicative of late modern society, is particularly pertinent in the context of intergenerational transfer, which has long been rooted in collective thinking. Drawing on the perspectives of incumbent farmers and potential successors, the article utilizes results from semistructured interviews with 29 farmers and 19 potential successors in Devon, England. Using a thematic analysis, the article provides a nuanced understanding of the impact of the systemic shift and the associated emphasis on the individual on successor identification. Although the article reaffirms understanding of successor creation as a collective process, determined by factors such as gender and birth order, it also identifies an emergent cohort of younger potential successors, for whom succession was the outcome of an evaluation of farming as a career. It concludes that, within the case study area, modernization is changing the way in which farm children are identifying themselves as “the successor.” The article suggests how this increasingly judicious approach to succession leaves reproduction of the family farm increasingly vulnerable to negative externalities.     

Rural Women and Decision Making: Women's Role in Resource Management During Rural Restructuring1

Abstract The intense, uneven, and often contradictory processes of agricultural restructuring impact upon the family farm in ways that are gendered. Those impacts may create, reproduce, or exacerbate contradictions within the farm family. We interviewed farm women about the decision making structure of families on Australian cereal properties and about land use and resource management strategies. Key informants working in government, agriculture, and management were asked about effects of restructuring on farm women and their role in resource management on the family farm. Different patterns were found: most decision making structures remain sex segregated, with women making more decisions about “inside” and men about “outside” resource management issues; shared decision responsibility was greater than expected. Farm women have views about farming, soil conservation, and the environment that have an influence on strategic planning in the sector whether they maintain their traditional family position or increase their agency and visibility.     

Climbing the “Agricultural Ladder”: Social Mobility and Motivations for Migration in an Ecuadorian Colonist Community*

Abstract During the early decades of the 20^th century in the American Midwest young farming families achieved social mobility by moving up an ‘agricultural ladder’ through a series of rungs, from unpaid family work, to wage labor, to tenant farming, to a mortgaged farm, and, finally, to full ownership of a farm. In this paper we use the concept of an agricultural ladder to understand processes of social mobility in a Third World setting. A case study of a small rural community in the Ecuadorian Amazon reveals that while the young think in terms of an agricultural ladder, they see temporary labor migration to distant places, rather than local wage labor, as the only way that they can amass the capital necessary to purchase land and reach the top rung on the ladder.     

Neither ‘family’ nor ‘corporate’ farming: Australian tomato growers as farm family entrepreneurs

For the past two decades there has been much debate about the future of family farming. The basic question on which this debate has turned is whether current pressures on family farm systems should be understood as symptomatic of a terminal condition, in which farmers are replaced progressively by corporate ownership; or whether family farms will persist as a social formation, albeit increasingly subsumed by off-farm interests. Using evidence from the Australian processing tomato sector, this article documents the changing social and economic formation of ‘family farming’. We argue that in this industry, the appropriate way to describe farmers is through the deployment of that a new category of farming; farm family entrepreneurs. This phrase is coined to describe the situation where family units remain at the social and economic heart of farm ownership and operation, but in the context where they relate to their land-based assets through legal and financial structures characteristic of the wider economy. As this article explores, this formation seems to represent an accommodating modus operandi for farm units within neo-liberal agricultural governance. Nevertheless, however, this duality of family-based structures and capitalist entrepreneurialism inevitably provokes a series of tensions, whose resolution requires a variety of organizational strategies to be put in place.     

Are Conventional Farmers Conventional? Analysis of the Environmental Orientations of Conventional New Zealand Farmers*

Abstract Within the political economy of agriculture and agrofood literatures there are examples of approaches that reject simple dichotomies between alternatives and the mainstream. In line with such approaches, we challenge the assumption that alternative agriculture, and its attendant improved environmental practices, alternative management styles, less intensive approaches, and better approaches to animal and ecosystem welfare, is the only source of agricultural sustainability. This article uses national farm‐survey results for New Zealand's sheep and beef, dairy, and horticulture sectors to examine conventional farmers, measure their assessments of farming practices, and assess their environmental orientation. Analysis identifies a proenvironmental cluster of farmers in each sector characterized by a higher environmental‐orientation score and distinct ratings of other farm practices queried in the survey. We interpret the results in terms of the exposure of different agricultural sectors to the effects of market‐based, audited, best‐practice schemes. The presence of shades of “greenness” among conventional farmers has important implications for environmental management and for our understanding of the various and complex pathways toward the greening of agrofood systems.