Family Farmers on the Edge: Adaptability and Change in Farm Households Final Report For the Countryside Agency
Matt Reed1, Matt Lobley1, Michael Winter2 Joan Chandler1
1University
of Plymouth
2University
of Exeter
December 2002
Contact: Matt Lobley 01626 325666 or
[email protected] Department of Land Use and Rural Management Seale-Hayne Campus Seale-Hayne, Newton Abbot, Devon TQ12 6NQ, UK. i
Family Farmers on the Edge: Adaptability and Change in Farm Households Key findings 1.
In the context of the worst farming recession since the 1930s and in the aftermath of
FMD this study examined farm household response to the economic downturn in agriculture and explored the role of, and impact on, the social networks of farm household members. 2.
The farms, farm family members and agricultural community of the study area have
been far from static in recent years. All have tried in various ways to adapt to the economic downturn in agriculture, the impacts of FMD and before that BSE. The very recent experience of FMD meant it was sometimes difficult to disentangle its influence from more deep-seated trends affecting agriculture. The survey, carried out during the winter of 2002, reveals a continuing strong commitment to remaining on the farm based on a range of strategies. 3.
Key findings are as follows:
•
The recent and middle past has seen considerable change in the study area. The cohesion of the farming community has been eroded and their role in wider rural society changed.
•
Farm family members have often withdrawn from participation in civic society. Few knew the names of non-farming neighbours. Membership of the NFU has seen a dramatic fall. Contemporary debates such as the future and legitimacy of hunting with dogs is causing division within farming society. These changes point to a breakdown of collective identity.
•
A divergent response has been identified with dairy farmers intensifying and attempting to increase production while smaller livestock (predominately beef) farms have entered a ‘holding pattern’. The dairy farms are typically operated by younger, better educated, more optimistic farmers. The small livestock farms are largely the reserve of older farmers with a very much less optimistic assessment of the state of their business.
•
Women working off the farm appears particularly important to the survival of a number of farms but their role is under-acknowledged. Even the women themselves can downplay the significance of their role. This reflects the continuing strong commitment to farming. Non-farm income does not carry the same weight as income earned through farming.
•
All the families had adopted a strategy of risk and debt aversion and survival had been aided by the buffer of other assets. A number of farms have only continued to survive through a strategy of not taking on debt and only investing in the business from their own resources.
•
Unwillingness to seek external capital may jeopardise ability to move out of the ‘holding pattern’ that their business currently occupies. Farms in a long term ‘holding pattern’ operated by farmers who are increasingly isolated and on the margins of information flows and ideas will find it harder to survive and compete against business operated by those with more active networks of association and greater willingness to take calculated risks ii
•
For some, their strategy means that for the time being they are ‘safe’. Intensive dairy business are in this category although many are vulnerable to unfavourable price movements and are highly dependent on long working hours frequently provided by a single male farmer. The ‘vulnerable’ are on the edge of survival, particularly the mixed and livestock farmers who were mostly older and occupied the smallest farms. Some survived only by consuming their savings.
•
Movements in social, cultural and economic capital can increase the vulnerability of a farm or farm household member. The concept of the vulnerability continuum illustrates how movements in different types of capital can influence vulnerability.
•
There were no examples of extreme poverty (inability to meet basic needs) but there were many cases of significant personal and economic hardship and ‘going without’ (delaying household expenditure and readjusting material needs).
•
Most respondents are deeply embedded within the locality, possessing high levels of local cultural capital and existing within dense networks of association. While the capital value of farming assets has been largely maintained in recent years the social capital of farming families has not been renewed in the way that it was before the recession and FMD.
•
Respondents noted ‘regret’ at no longer being so actively involved in their community. On the other hand, peer pressure and social pressure has been put on those considering not restocking after FMD. The general cultural tenor that ‘real men farm’ can hinder change and make it an uncomfortable process.
•
A wide range of factors influence the strategies adopted by farm families. For the family themselves it is often not clear why or how they settled on a particular approach and it is frequently difficult to disentangle the pattern of response among farm households from the process that produces that response.
•
However, younger, better educated farmers are more able to adopt the dairy strategy. Older farmers, particularly those with some other income and lacking a successor are more likely to favour beef farming. Those associated with vulnerability were unable to finance enterprise expansion, less likely to have alternative income and were most likely to be among the few businesses with a remaining sheep enterprise.
4.
The report advocates:
•
Development of means to facilitate getting farmers off the farm. Relief labour can play a role here but consideration should also be given to developing a ‘farm sitting’ service to enable farmers and family members to leave for longer periods and even take a holiday (which for many was a rare event).
•
Family Business Forums should be developed. A group or groups with a much wider constituency than just farmers should be developed to discuss the problems of running a family business with other non-farm family business owners and operators. Forums could address issues and provide training in developing mutually compatible visions for the family and business, managing conflict in the family and business, selecting and preparing a successor as well as proving the opportunity to exchange ideas and share experiences.
•
There is a demand for the wider availability of agri-environmental schemes and advice on ‘realistic’ diversification options. The former may be achieved through an entry level stewardship scheme. The latter can be addressed through advisory services but also through the use of farm visits and successfully diversified farmers as ‘leading edge practitioners’, offering sites for demonstration. iii
•
Successful business operators need to be able to take calculated risks and accept debt when necessary or seek other ways of generating capital. In addition to expanding ERDP funding consideration should be given to alternative methods of co-financing the restructuring of the farm business. There is a shortage of external, private, capital in farming and it might be fruitful to explore the possibility of private co-financing to lever in funds from outside the farm sector. The Market & Coastal Town Initiatives (MCTI) strategic planning process and the possibilities for more innovative funding ideas emerging through the MCTI brokerage process, offer one way in which this idea might be pursued.
iv
Acknowledgements and Disclaimers
A large number of people have helped us in the course of this project. In particular we are grateful for the help of all the farmers and farm family members who consented to talk to us and gave generously of their time in discussing how they have adapted in the face of recent developments. We are also grateful to all the informants who provided helpful background information.
All remaining errors and omissions are of course the responsibility of the authors.
The research on which this report is based was funded by the Countryside Agency
The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared by other members of the University or by the University as a whole. The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared by the Countryside Agency
v
Executive Summary
E.1
This project was commissioned at a time when British farmers were going
through a period of apparently sustained economic downturn, in fact the worst farming recession since the 1930s. The overall aim of the project was to examine farm household response to the economic downturn in agriculture and consider the role of, and impact on, the social networks of farm household members. E.2 •
The specific objectives of the project were to: describe and examine perceptions of the issues, problems and opportunities facing agriculture at the current time by adult members of farming households
•
identify the adaptive responses of different farm households and different members of the farm household
•
understand the farm, farm business, household, and personal factors associated with different adaptive responses
•
identify and map the social networks of farm households and the network position of household members
•
examine the extent to which the household impacts of economic difficulties are associated with impacts on the level of interaction with social support networks.
•
develop policy implications for enabling farm household to adapt to business change and for farm household support
E.3
The project was conceived of before the outbreak of FMD in 2001 and was
subsequently delayed by six months until the final stages of the outbreak. Although it was not an objective of the project to explore the impact of FMD specifically, given the location of the study area, the influence and very recent experience of FMD, it was sometimes difficult to disentangle its influence from some of the more deepseated trends affecting agriculture, particularly in terms of understanding farm household responses.
vi
E.4
The study focused on the Hatherleigh to Holsworthy area. This area was
chosen at the suggestion of the Countryside Agency but it also partially corresponds with the study area selected by Professor Michael Winter for his PhD work in 1982. Consequently, the sampling frame used was the 100 farms originally surveyed in 1982 with the added bonus that we would be able to trace changes over a twenty-year period. A number of methodological approaches were employed to generate information about farming, farm and family strategies and networks of association. The survey was designed to include all adult members of the farm household and involved a mixture of quantitative and qualitative approaches. The aim was to provide rich, in-depth information rather than construct a statistically robust sample and a total of 26 farms were surveyed although this involved in excess of 35 individuals. E.5
The farms, farm family members and agricultural community of the study
area have been far from static in recent years. All have tried in various ways to adapt to the economic downturn in agriculture, the impacts of FMD and before that BSE. We have sought to understand farm family member’s own accounts of how they have adapted to change in terms of the social and cultural capital they have developed. E.6
The survey, carried out during the winter of 2002, reveals a continuing strong
commitment to remaining on the farm based on a range of strategies, most notably dairy specialisation and expansion, beef production and diversification. Others have been unable to implement a successful adaptive response and are frequently vulnerable in a number of ways. In all cases it can be seen that beyond the readily accessible measures of farming change, such as shifts in farm size and enterprise type, there are hidden costs to any strategy. Sometimes these costs are hidden from the individuals concerned and are only visible from a distance. E.7
The recent and middle past has seen considerable change in the study area.
The practise of neighbour-helping-neighbour has all but disappeared other than in emergencies. This is not unexpected given the growth of contracting arrangements across the country but it is one of a number of ways in which the cohesion of the farming community has been eroded and their role in wider rural society changed. Survey evidence also points to a withdrawal by farm family members from vii
participation in civic society. This is partially a cause and partially a reflection of the very few interviewees who knew the names of their non-farming neighbours. Even membership of the NFU which could have been considered near ‘compulsory’ twenty-years ago has seen a dramatic fall in membership as farmers increasingly felt that it no longer represented them or their best interests. At the same time, contemporary debates such as the future and legitimacy of hunting with dogs is causing division within farming society. Together, these changes point to a breakdown of collective identity. Survival and vulnerability E.8
It is against this background of reduced cohesion and social activity over the
last twenty years that the adaptive strategies of farm households have been formed although clearly, some of the changes described above are also a result of particular strategies and ways of coping. A divergent response has been identified among farm households with dairy farmers intensifying and attempting to increase production while smaller livestock (predominately beef) farms have entered a ‘holding pattern’. The dairy farms are typically operated by younger, better educated and more optimistic farmers while the small livestock farms are largely the reserve of older farmers with a very much less optimistic assessment of the current state of their business. E.9
At the same time, a number of farms have continued to survive through a
strategy of not taking on debt and only investing in the business from their own resources. While this type of ‘belt-tightening’ approach may aid survival in the short term, a pronounced unwillingness to take risks may have implications for future survival particularly where this is associated with increasing social isolation. Farms in a long term ‘holding pattern’ operated by farmers who are increasingly isolated and on the margins of information flows and ideas will find it harder to survive and compete against business operated by those with more active networks of association and greater willingness to take calculated risks. E.10
Some households have successfully diversified their activities by developing
other businesses or taking up work off the farm. The role of women working off the viii
farm appears to be particularly important to the survival of a number of farms but their role is under-acknowledged. Even the women themselves can down-play the significance of their role despite evidence that it is their income that enables the continuation of the household. In a way this is another reflection of the continuing strong commitment to farming as non-farm income, no matter how important in an objective sense, does not carry the same weight as income earned through farming. E.11
This research has attempted to explain how adaptive responses and strategies
for coping are formulated and how they may help keep a farm family from losing their business and their home. For some, their strategy means that for the time being at least, they are ‘safe’. The intensive, modernised dairy business are in this category although many are still vulnerable to unfavourable movements in prices and are highly dependent on long working hours frequently provided by a single male farmer. The ‘vulnerable’ are those most clearly on the edge of survival, particularly the mixed and livestock farmers in the survey who were mostly older and occupied the smallest farms. Some had survived this far only by consuming their savings while others had tried to move their reserves outside of farming with negative results. E.12
Although there were no examples among the interviews of extreme poverty;
the inability to meet basic needs such as adequate food, heating or clothing, there were many cases of significant personal and economic hardship. Many were reluctant to admit to ‘going without’ (for example skipping meals or turning off the heating) although others did point to delaying household expenditure for the sake of the farm business and to readjusting their material needs. The latter was often a long and incremental adjustment and for some it was difficult to recognise the changes that they had made. E.13
All the families had adopted a strategy of risk and debt aversion and survival
had been aided by the buffer of other assets. While debt aversion in particular has undoubtedly aided the survival of many, an unwillingness to seek external capital may jeopardise their ability to move out of the ‘holding pattern’ that their business currently occupies.
ix
E.14
There is a limit to how long any business can survive by drawing on its own
capital resources without making attempts to renew that capital and that applies to all the forms of capital examined in the research. Most of the families interviewed can be described as deeply embedded within the locality, possessing high levels of local cultural capital and existing within dense networks of family and social association. While the capital value of farming assets has been largely maintained or even increased in recent years there is clear evidence that the social capital of farming families has not been renewed in the way that it was before the recession and FMD in particular. E.15
Many have withdrawn from social contacts as part of a strategy of working
longer, harder hours on the farm in order to survive. This is seen in the decline in formal civic participation, reductions in other activities which involve getting off the farm, lack of knowledge of non-farming neighbours and generally increased isolation. This response can be associated with a vicious downward spiral leading to further isolation, lack of awareness of the successful and less personally costly strategies adopted by others and a movement away from the networks of association that are frequently important in successful business strategies. The respondents themselves noted ‘regret’ at no longer being so actively involved in their community. E.16
It is also important to recognise the negative role played by ‘dark social
capital’ - when the bonds and associations of social life become a destructive force. Peer pressure and social pressure has been put on those considering not restocking after FMD, some who have left farming have been the object of verbal abuse and the general cultural tenor that ‘real men farm’ can hinder change and make it an uncomfortable process. E.17
Movements in social, local cultural and economic capital can increase the
vulnerability of a farm or farm household member just as unfavourable movements in the price for milk can threaten some of the apparently safe dairy farms. The concept of the vulnerability continuum illustrates how movements in different types of capital can influence vulnerability. A currently safe dairy farm could soon move into a position of vulnerability due to economic changes (fall in milk price) but also internal family changes such as ill health or even the lack of a suitable successor. x
A business which is both economically vulnerable and which is also associated with a family possessing eroding social capital may rapidly move towards the edge of survivability. The concept of the ‘edge’ can also be considered in a multifaceted way. Some farm households were economically safe when viewed from the outside but family tensions and the erosion of social capital meant that they were on the edge in other senses. Vulnerability is unlikely to be a sudden event but a process through which a family moves. Sudden foreclosure or bankruptcy appears to be less likely than a gradual erosion of the base of the family’s ability, desire and capacity to continue. E.18
A wide range of factors can influence the strategies adopted by farm families
and for the family themselves it is often not clear why or how they settled on a particular approach. Indeed, it is frequently difficult to disentangle the pattern of response among farm households from the process that produces that response However, it is clear that younger, better educated farmers are more able to adopt the dairy strategy although this is often at the expense of long working hours and a withdrawal from social contact. Older farmers, particularly those with some other income and lacking a successor are more likely to favour beef farming with its less intensive labour demands offering greater flexibility and facilitating greater social contact. Those most likely to be associated with vulnerability were unable to finance enterprise expansion, were less likely to have alternative sources of income and were most likely to be among the few businesses with a remaining sheep enterprise. Recommendations E.19
The results of this research have implications for a number of policy areas
although many revolve around the theme of facilitating social capital formation. Many of the farmers (in particular) interviewed were suffering from increasing social isolation and as well as being associated with personal hardship, such isolation is not good from a business perspective either. Consequently, a first recommendation is for means to facilitate getting farmers off the farm. Relief labour can play a role here but consideration should also be given to developing a ‘farm sitting’ service to enable farmers (and their family’s) to leave for longer periods and even take a holiday (which for many was a rare event). xi
E.20 The breakdown in some of the more traditional forms of association between farmers coupled with isolation and an inability to see a clear future direction for the business has implications for longer term survival. Family business Forums could be developed to act as a means for sharing both ideas and frustrations and in bringing people together who may otherwise rarely meet. A group or groups with a much wider constituency than just farmers could be developed to discuss the problems of running a family business with other non-farm family business owners and operators. Visits to other businesses could act as a source of ideas and inspiration as well has helping to develop wider networks of association. Existing groups should also be made more aware of the importance of networks of contacts and take steps to avoid the erosion of social capital. Similarly, Young Farmers clubs should examine the scope for broadening out and involving more non-farming members, speakers, etc in an attempt to foster the development of wider networks of association from a relatively young age. E.21
Survey evidence suggests a demand both for the wider availability of agri-
environmental schemes and advice on ‘realistic’ diversification options. The former may well be achieved through the development of an entry level stewardship scheme although the latter is more problematic. It can be partially addressed through advisory services but also through the use of farm visits and successfully diversified farmers as ‘leading edge practitioners’. E.22 The tactic of risk and debt aversion has played a major role in the survival of many business in the survey but to be successful business operators need to be able to take calculated risks and accept debt when necessary or seek other ways of generating capital. In addition to expanding ERDP funding consideration should be given to alternative methods of co-financing the restructuring of the farm business. There is a shortage of external, private, capital in farming and it might be fruitful to explore the possibility of private co-financing to lever in funds from outside the farm sector. Any initiative should seek to introduce others willing to share both risk and reward. As well as increasing the funding potentially available to farmers, private co– financing arrangements could help re-connect the farming and non-farming business community. xii
E.23 The agricultural community has become more isolated from the rest of the rural community and cohesion within the farming community has eroded. Creating greater cohesion between farming families will require a rebuilding of social spaces, were initially people can meet without contention or controversial discussion. A range of events should be considered that focus on just being away from the farm and with other people focussed on social events or broader community issues rather than farming needs. These events could be hosted by organisations such as parish councils, churches or civic groups as either specific events or as part of their normal programme.
xiii
Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY VI CHAPTER 1: PROJECT BACKGROUND, OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY Introduction Methodology
3 5
CHAPTER 2: CONTEMPORARY FLOWS AND FORCES Introduction Contemporary forces of change Recent patterns of adaption and change Advancing the understanding of the family farm Family strategy Summary
7 7 7 11 15 18 20
CHAPTER 3: PATTERNS OF CHANGE Introduction Perceptions of Change The Impact of FMD They shoot calves don’ t they? Hardship and Poverty Worry Solace and Support Networks The collapse of solidarity Local Media – global worries Going Out Living Locally The NFU Collective Identity Summary
22 22 22 25 27 29 33 35 36 37 39 40 41 42 44 47
CHAPTER 4: NEGOTIATING THE EDGE -INDICATORS OF ADAPTATION 49 Introduction 49 Farm Size 49 Farm Types & Family Strategy 52 Reconfiguring the Farm Business 56 I’d go Organic but .... 57 Managing bills 60 Diversification & Pluriactivity 64 Education & Training 71 The Safe 74 The Vulnerable 76 CHAPTER 5: THE PROCESS OF ADAPTATION Introduction
79 79 1
Families’ perceptions of safety Analytical accounts of safety The Vulnerability Continuum The Erosion of Capital Embeddedness and Dis-embedding Class The Safe Dairy farming Beef farming The Vulnerable Mixed Farming Families at the Edge Summary
79 82 83 85 90 92 93 93 94 95 96 96 97
CHAPTER SIX : SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Survival and vulnerability The future Policy recommendations Getting off the farm Family Business Forums Young farmers Role of media Diversification and agri-environmental management Tackling risk and debt aversion Reinvigorating rural social cohesion
100 101 104 105 105 106 107 107 107 108 109
APPENDICES References A. 1 Methodology The 1982 survey Interviews Questionnaire Failed methodologies Computer Archives The missing Questionnaires
109 112 112 113 114 114 115 115 118
2
Chapter One Project background, objectives and methodology Introduction 1.1
The late 1990s saw British agriculture entering a recession which would see
farm incomes in 2001 (Total Income from Farming - TIFF) falling to their lowest point since the depression of the 1930s. Although there has been a small increase in TIFF (up 11% in 2001) it is still 72% below its peak in 1995. Similarly, although net farm income (NFI – the return to principal farmer and spouse) has risen, it remains extremely volatile and variable across farming sectors. DEFRA estimates suggest that the NFI of lowland livestock farms will be stable for the last year whereas NFI will fall on LFA (Less Favoured Area) livestock holdings (DEFRA 2002). The principle reason for low incomes has been the strength of sterling although British farming has also had to contend with exogenous shocks. 1.2
Variable weather patterns play a role here but most significant has been the
outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease. A total of 2030 cases were recorded with over 170 confirmed cases in Devon alone and some 43% of farms were under ‘Form D’ movement restrictions (Devon County Council 2001). By the end of the outbreak over 400,000 animals in Devon had been slaughtered and their carcasses destroyed as part of the measures to contain the disease. Although the disease itself will have directly effected a minority of farming families, all farming families will have been subject to the anxiety generated by the threat of the disease’s presence. The consequences of the disease control measures, along with the anxiety it has generated may well mark the attitudes and behaviours of an entire generation of farming families. 1.3
Although events in the recent past suggest a major driver for agricultural
change, the process of restructuring in British agriculture is deep-seated, reflecting long standing economic and social changes within agriculture and the wider economy and society. The ‘headline’ changes are well known such as changes in the size structure of agriculture, the growth of pluriactivity, and more recently, the development of the so-called residential or lifestyle occupier of agricultural land. 3
Detailed academic studies have revealed the management adjustments implemented by farmers and their families leading to these ‘headline’ changes. Many continue to follow tried and tested routes of adaptation (Errington and Tranter 1991), seeking to cut costs and expand production. More recently there has been an increase in attempts to add value through processing, branding, marketing and direct sales while others seek to diversify their business through other gainful activities on or off the farm. It has been suggested that the range of possible responses form a ‘restructuring spectrum’ (Lobley, Errington et al. 2002) with little or no change at one end and radical restructuring in the form of exit from agriculture at the other. The latter need not point towards ‘failure’ in farming but may reflect opportunities to actively embrace other activities. Although analysts are increasingly well placed to describe the range of adaptive responses implemented by farming households, the subtle processes and influences behind such behaviour remain less well explored. 1.4
Evidence from the ‘farm crisis’ of the 1980s in the United States suggests that
those in greatest economic difficulty are likely to become increasingly isolated from support networks and organisations. This is the very sort of social support and contact that can be effective in helping to ‘buffer’ the impacts of stress in farm households (Clarke 1996; Deary, Willock et al. 1997). At the same time, the internal farm household strategies adopted to aid survival and the hidden, personal costs of adaptation and survival remain poorly understood. 1.5
Against this background, the present project aimed to examine farm
household response to the current economic downturn in agriculture and consider the role of, and impact on, the social networks of farm household members. The project was conceived of before the outbreak of FMD in 2001 and was subsequently delayed by six months until the final stages of the outbreak. Although it was not an objective of the project to explore the impact of FMD specifically, given the location of the study area, the influence and very recent experience of FMD, it was sometimes difficult to disentangle its influence from some of the more deep-seated trends affecting agriculture, particularly in terms of understanding farm household responses.
4
1.6 •
The specific objectives of the project were to: describe and examine perceptions of the issues, problems and opportunities facing agriculture at the current time by adult members of farming households
•
identify the adaptive responses of different farm households and different members of the farm household
•
understand the farm, farm business, household, and personal factors associated with different adaptive responses
•
identify and map the social networks of farm households and the network position of household members
•
examine the extent to which the household impacts of economic difficulties are associated with impacts on the level of interaction with social support networks.
•
to develop policy implications for enabling farm household to adapt to business change and for farm household support
Methodology1 1.7
A number of methodological approaches have been used in the project, some
of which were more successful than others and therefore new methodological approaches were developed during the project. The study focused on the Hatherleigh to Holsworthy area. This area was chosen at the suggestion of the Countryside Agency but it also partially corresponds with the study area chosen by Professor Michael Winter for his PhD work in 1982. Consequently, the sampling frame used was the 100 farms originally surveyed in 1982 with the added bonus that we would be able to trace changes over a twenty-year period. The current survey was designed to include all adult members of the farm household and involved a mixture of quantitative and qualitative approaches. The aim was to provide rich, in-depth information rather than construct a statistically robust sample and a total of 26 farms were surveyed although this involved in excess of 35 individuals.
1
See appendix 1 for detailed discussion of methodology.
5
1.8
The structure for the interviews was created by using a series of
questionnaires which the interviewees completed with the researcher. One questionnaire was concerned with the management of the farm business, whilst there were separate questionnaires for the farm operator/farmer, the farm operator’s partner and other adults living on the farm. The farm business questionnaire was designed to have elements that could be compared with other contemporary surveys to allow broader comparisons to be made. The more personal questionnaires were designed to collect information about local networks, personal resources and attributes, but also to ask questions that would require more discussion. 1.9
The final aspect of the interview process was the recording of the whole
conversation with the consent of the participants. Using a very discreet microphone and a mini-disc recorder, the whole interview was recorded at very high quality, and a sample of the recordings later transcribed2. This method of recording means that the data is available for analysis using a variety of tools. It also allows a range of analysis – on the words, metaphors and examples used by interviewees that would not be possible otherwise (see methodology appendix). This data is used extensively in this report and it opens new avenues for the investigation of how families make their decisions.
The original research budget did not include the costs of transcription services. These costs have been met by the research team although only a sample of the interviews (10 interviews out of the 24 recorded have been fully transcribed) further transcriptions could be funded to allow transcripts from the first survey to be compared with the contemporary interview.
2
6
Chapter 2 Contemporary Flows and Forces Introduction 2.1
Family farms have received considerable attention recently in the popular
media, stemming initially from the impact of the economic downturn and later the outbreak of FMD. Frequent mention has been made of the consequences for rural society of the loss of family farms and loss of a ‘way of life’. Family farms however, have proved remarkably tenacious and able to adapt to a variety of drivers of change. This chapter reviews some of the drivers of contemporary farming change and develops a new conceptual approach to understanding the family farm. In doing so, and in re-focusing attention on the family aspect of family farming, greater consideration is given to the social relations of farm household members and the ways in which this may influence behaviour and survival prospects. Contemporary forces of change3 2.2
A wide range of factors impinging upon agriculture are driving the adaptive
responses of farm households. Entec for example, identify four major categories of driver: the policy framework, market forces, technology and knowledge (Entec 2000). The policy framework and market forces combine to produce ‘financial pressure’ as an immediate driver, while technology and knowledge contribute to the trend of increasing capital-labour ratios, itself a driver of structural change. In their research, Savills identified ten different types of driver, namely:
•
The relative decline of agriculture
•
Diversity of management performance amongst farmers
•
The age of farmers and existence of family successors
•
The cost of servicing farm business debt
3 This section draws on Lobley, et al (2002) Implications of Changes in the Structure of Agricultural Businesses
7
•
Technology, knowledge and skills which have driven a replacement of labour by machinery and accentuated the benefits of management ability
•
Economies of scale
•
Changing food and input markets
•
Changing subsidies and specific policy mechanisms and regulations, such as agrienvironment schemes
•
A growing interest in the countryside as a place to visit and in which to live and work
•
2.3
Disruption by unexpected events such as FMD The above list spans a range of different categories of driver. For example,
factors such as age of farmer and existence of a successor can be considered as a farm household driver, while changing subsidies and specific policy mechanisms may be regarded as EU and national drivers of change (such as the Agenda 2000 reforms and ERDP respectively) although they are ultimately influenced by global drivers such as the WTO agenda (see for example, (Potter and Burney 2002). 2.4
Global drivers reflect the steady dismantling of the protectionist food
regimes established in the earlier post war period, subjecting agriculture to the forces of liberalisation and globalisation operating at an international scale. The growing global market for grain and meat products adds to pressures to realise economies of scale and improve efficiency within UK and European agriculture generally. In addition, further liberalisation and globalisation of agricultural trade and production is likely to result from the new round of WTO (World Trade Organisation) talks opened on 2001. Most commentators concur that an agreement will finally be reached that will see the further decoupling of agricultural support from production decisions. For UK farmers the main impact of a new WTO agreement will be to drive further change in EU and domestic support arrangements, reshaping the policy framework within which farm business decisions are made. 2.5
At the EU level key drivers of restructuring are the on-going reform agenda
and slow, partial shift towards rural development and agri-environment funding but also the promotion of the so-called ‘European model of agriculture’. In part this reflects the influence of the WTO agenda and the likely future shift in funding from 8
‘pillar one’ to ‘pillar two’ of the CAP represents a further attempt to develop a ‘WTOproof’ CAP. At the same time, internal EU developments, notably eastward enlargement are intensifying budgetary pressure and providing an additional incentive to provide direct payments decoupled from production. 2.6
National drivers obviously include the specific means of implementing EU
policy such as the ERDP but also encompass the tax regime, housing policy, farm tenancy legislation and environmental regulation. It is more difficult to identify distinct regional drivers although some drivers which may be considered in the national category have very distinct regional patterns such as the desire for countryside living and the availability of alternatives to agricultural income (which is perceived to be spatially uneven). In addition, changes in consumers preferences relating to the demand for food and the way in which that food is produced are associated with the emergence of a quality food sector, niche marketing, branding and labelling initiatives and Quality Assurance Schemes – all of which may have implications for the restructuring of agricultural businesses (Ilbery and Kneafsey 2000). 2.7
Finally, the role of farm level drivers should not be underestimated but
farm level drivers are also complex because it is here that the effects of other drivers are mediated as well as being a source of internal farm household drivers. Farm income is perhaps the most readily observed driver at the farm level. Recent data indicates that Total Income From Farming (TIFF) in the UK fell by 27% in 2000. This is a real terms fall of 72% since TIFF peaked in 1995 and places TIFF in 2000 well below that in 1975 (MAFF 2000). In addition, the gap between total agricultural income and national wealth is widening over time (FPDSavills 2001). At the farm level Net Farm Income has declined markedly across the arable, dairy and livestock sectors during the 1990s (Winter and Smith 2001). Against this background of falling farm income agricultural debt has been increasing since the mid-1990s (FPDSavills 2001). 2.8
While economic and financial drivers are felt most acutely at the farm level,
the internal characteristics of the farm household, passage through the business cycle and farm family life cycle also drive change. A considerable body of evidence (e.g. 9
(Ilbery 1992; Errington and Gasson 1993; Potter and Lobley 1993; Potter, Barr et al. 1996), suggests that family events and processes such as births, marriage, ageing, succession and retirement can trigger change in agricultural businesses. 2.9
As with many family businesses, one of the prime objectives of family farms is
to pass on control of a sound and often improved business to the next generation (Gasson and Errington 1993). The process of succession and its intimate links to the mirrored process of retirement can be a time of considerable financial and emotional stress on the farm and there is much evidence of the impacts on the successor and the business when the father can’t bring himself to fully let go of the reins (see for example, (Lobley and Potter 1998; Errington and Lobley 2002) Succession can have a powerful influence on the development trajectory of a farm business. Symes for instance (Symes 1973), found that farms lacking a successor were less likely to be managed intensively, and that “the production cycle declines closer to a subsistence mode in old age than at any other point in the life cycle” (Symes 1973:101). On the other hand, the identification of a successor can act as a trigger for business development, and the existence of a successor can provide a powerful motivation for on-going investment in the business even into the old age of the retiring farmer (Potter and Lobley, 1996a and b). Savills suggest that “the existence of a successor within the family farm business is a key variable in determining the course of future structural change” (FPDSavills 2001). 2.10
Although the full impact of succession may not be revealed until the successor
is incorporated into the business, in many cases the anticipation and expectation of succession can influence decision making long before a potential successor is identified and indicates a desire to succeed. So when farmers, as they frequently do, point to a toddler playing with a toy tractor and proudly identify him (and it almost always is a ‘him’) as ‘my successor’, that assumption may already be influencing thinking and decisions about the farm, making some business options unthinkable while others become more attractive. 2.11
The process of retirement from farming can also trigger restructuring of the
business. Retirement from farming is frequently unlike retirement from other, urban based occupations and may involve an extended period of winding down the business 10
and slow withdrawal. This process is often associated with movements out of dairying for instance, extensification and a reduction in farm scale with land being sold but also increasingly let on an FBT (Farm Business Tenancy) or put out to contract. Recent patterns of adaption and change 2.12
Recent patterns of farming adaption and change have been characterised as
involving the processes of consolidation, specialisation and diversification (HainesYoung and McNally 2001; McNally 2001). Consolidation refers to the trend of concentrating production into the hands of fewer, larger farms and is discussed in more detail below. Specialisation is the concentration on fewer enterprises at the farm level and is generally seen in the decline in the number of mixed and general cropping farms (Haines-Young and McNally 2001). Diversification is defined in many ways but in its widest sense refers to the process of developing other income sources through additional activities either on or off the farm. Diversification can be seen as both an adaptive response to drivers of restructuring and a driver of restructuring itself as farm enterprises are modified to facilitate other activities. Off farm employment in particular is often associated with the simplification of farming systems and an increase in the use of contractors (FPDSavills 2001). Diversification has grown in importance both in terms of the number of diversified farm businesses and the contribution made by diversified income. By 1998/99 non-agricultural income accounted for 62% of farmers’ income compared to 43% in 1990/91 and over a similar period (1987-1999) the proportion of GB farms classified as ‘other’ rose from 16% to 26%, reflecting the growth of diversified holdings (FPDSavills 2001; Haines-Young and McNally 2001) 2.13
Alongside increasing on-farm specialisation and diversification recent years
have seen considerable changes in the farm size structure of English agriculture and a greater concentration of productive resources in the hands of fewer farmers. Whilst the size of a farm holding is not synonymous with the size of a farm business, changes in the scale, construction and tenure of holdings are both indicative of and symptomatic of the changing structure of farm businesses. The common perception is of a rapidly changing hierarchy of farms, more farmers retiring and farms sold, 11
splitting of traditional units with sales of farmsteads outside of agriculture and amalgamation of surplus land with adjoining already large holdings whether by sale or letting, a consequential rise in holding size and the oft reported “loss of the traditional family farm”. The impact of Foot and Mouth, bringing the issue to the forefront of public concern in a highly dramatic fashion, has heightened anxieties at the speed of change. 2.14
There is some evidence to suggest an increase in the numbers planning to
leave farming. An examination of the impact of FMD on Welsh agriculture for example (Christie, Midmore et al. 2001), reported a 1.8% increase (from 6 to 7.8%) in the proportion planning to ‘retire soon’ when comparing pre- and post-FMD intentions and a 4.3% increase in the proportion planning to leave farming for another job. Savills report that 63% of the respondents in their survey expected that they would still be farming in 2006, while 18% planned to leave and 19% were unsure. Commitment to remaining in farming was uneven though and around threequarters of both arable farmers and the operators of large farms (>200ha) planned to remain in farming in the near future. Recent research in six study areas in England indicates that 15% of survey respondents expected to personally leave farming over the next five years and of these 34% have already identified a successor and more expect to do so in the next few years (Lobley, Errington et al. 2002). 2.15
The patterns of adaptation disused so far involve changes in the use and
deployment of resources (including human resources). The way in which farm families themselves approach and negotiate these choices has been much less rigorously researched. Dan Elder undertook research on families coping with the Great Depression in the US during the 1930’s and argues that Families can adopt three modes of adaptation to deprivation; 1 - Changing family needs (or claims) 2 - Changing consumption patterns 3 - Changing available (economic) resources
12
He argues that during the depression of the 1930’s, they chose the later two, and it is arguable that in many circumstances the ability to adopt mode 1 might be very limited(Elder, Conger et al. 2000). 2.16
As might be expected it is the crises of farming that brings forth scholarship,
with the farm crisis of the early 1980’s in the United States leading to a plethora of studies in the ten years that followed. These studies, although obviously formed and guided by the experience of the United States, point to a range of factors that enabled the family farm to ride out the economic storms and to those that saw the family project sink (Garkovich, Bokemeier et al. 1995). Business factors such as the level of indebtedness and the size of the farm were revealed as important forces. Many farms had expanded and borrowed heavily in the years before the recession. Larger and more heavily mechanised farms were far more vulnerable as US banks rapaciously foreclosed on mortgages. 2.17
The North American research indicated that the stage in the life course of the
family when the crisis struck, the attitudes that informed the farm management style and the social life of the family were important (Harmon 1994). Older farmers whose experience or memory encompassed the trouble of the 1930’s were more debt averse and so rode the squalls more easily (Conger, Elder et al. 1994; Elder, Conger et al. 2000). Finally, it was those with the most links off the farm who anticipated what was coming and were able to take corrective action (Lasley, Leistritz et al. 1995). These groups ranged from the women who tended to keep the books of the farm, to those farmers most active in civic and social life. Conversely, evidence suggests that those in greatest economic difficulty are likely to become increasingly isolated from support networks and organisations: the very sort of social support and contact that can be effective in helping to ‘buffer’ the impacts of stress in farm households (Clarke 1996; Deary and Willock 1997). 2.18
The second important contribution from previous studies has been the
importance of the life course in family responses to change. Families with young children may respond to external challenges in a very different way to an older couple with no children. Families with young children may have greater and immediate demands for cash, as well as active aspirations for their children. Whilst 13
an older couple might be happy to spend capital they have accumulated or alternatively lay the foundations for a child who will return to the family farm. The emphasis on the life cycle of the family also points to the importance of broader historical flows to changes in farm families. New technologies such as those around birth control, or new social trends such as women working full-time have an influence on the life cycle of the family. The grand changes of society can be seen to find a resting place in a particular family. 2.19
This emphasis on history brings to the fore that families are not only subject to
the flows of history, but also have their own history which structures their actions and to which they have access.
14
Advancing the understanding of the family farm
2.20 In this report we use the term ‘farm family business’ and have tried to convey the complex interplay of farm, family, business and environment in a family farm in our definition (see Table 1). The importance of introducing the term ‘business’ is to focus on the commercial nature of the farm. It is not primarily about growing crops or raising animals for the family’s direct use, but for sale in a modern economy. Without wanting to downplay the individuality of families or the diversity of farms, we present the following nine points as indicative of the most important elements of what constitutes a farm family business. These points are not intended as a ‘checklist’ of the family farm, which can be used to include or exclude any particular farm. Rather they represent an ‘ideal type’ that would lend itself to analysing real farms and families. These points build on earlier work (Gasson and Errington 1993), they represent a development from the previous literature, and a series of new avenues for the investigation of family farming. Table 1 - The Seale Hayne model of the farm family business 1 - Business ownership is combined with daily managerial control by principals 2 - Principals are related by a dynamic combination of kin/marriage 3 - Family members provide economic, cultural and social capital for the business 4 - Family members do farm work in intellectual, emotional and manual forms. 5 - A commitment to farming is passed between generations. Ownership and control is transferred between the generations for selected children. 6 – A part of the family lives on the core family farm. 7 – The family is embedded in a dense local network of kinship, friendship and association. 8 – The environment around the family and the animals it rears embody the labour of the family. 9 – The family generates and performs a discourse about farming for themselves and others.
15
2.21
Business Ownership and Control - The family owns and is in daily
control of the business. Although they may work off the farm for a time to provide additional income to the family they retain day-to-day control and ownership of the farm business. This is distinctly different from many other businesses where there is a separation of ownership (which lies with shareholders) from day-to-day control (in the hands of employed managers).
2.22
Principals related - The owner/managers of the business – the business
principals - are related to one another by kinship or marriage. As with other contemporary families these relationships may change through divorce, re-marriage and stepfamilies.
2.23
Family members provide capital - This may be financial capital, but also
social and cultural capital, in the form of personal skills, education, or knowledge, as well as contacts to other people important for the family farm business.
2.24
Family members do farm work - The family provides labour to the farm,
not just working physically on the farm, although that is obviously crucial, but through supporting the farm and one another. The work of women in working off the farm for cash, or doing the domestic work in the house is no less important. Family members whether living on the farm or not do ‘emotional work’ to support one another in the overall project of keeping the farm.
2.25
A commitment to farming - The ownership and control of the farm is
passed between family members, with even those children who do not succeed to the farm having an overall commitment to farming and to keeping the farm in the family.
2.26
The family lives on the farm - A part of the whole family live on the ‘home’
farm. This will depend on the stage in the life cycle of the family, but at all times some members of the family will live on the farm.
16
2.27
Dense local networks - The family are embedded in dense networks in the
area in which they live. Often these will be kinship networks with uncles, cousins and nieces living in the same area, but there will also be networks of friendship and association. Living and working in the same area, often over several generations, the family knows many of the local people and is part of the social networks of the area.
2.28
Embodied in the environment - The landscape and animals of the farm
are a reflection of the labour and preferences of the family. The family, through its work, shapes and creates the landscape, which it farms. In its turn the landscape also has profound effects on the family, setting some of the parameters on their daily life and longer-term choices.
2.29
Making farming meaningful - Through their talking about and
conducting farming the family make farming meaningful to themselves. They define some of their goals and what those mean to them. Equally they make farming meaningful to others, telling the wider community about farming. This allows those not farming to enter a dialogue about farming and what it might mean.
2.30
All farming families are unique, and as with any other family, generalisations
must remain just that, a general comment. The lives led by real farming families are their own but we are suggesting that there are some common features of family farming. Although we are accustomed to reading about family farming with a romantic gloss, our model is not based on an idealistic vision of family farming. For some, life on a family farm might be an ideal of happiness. For others it may be a tangled net of obligation to the dead and duty to the unappreciative living.
Social and Cultural Capital 2.31
By refocusing on the family aspect of family farming the approach adopted
here leads to a reconsideration of the networks of social relations associated with farm family members. The term social capital refers to the social networks that the family can turn to. Social capital may be bonding or bridging in nature. The former 17
builds strong bonds of affinity and support, whilst the latter facilitates being open to other people and their ways. Robert Putnam contrasts them in following manner; Bonding social capital constitutes a kind of sociological superglue, whereas bridging social capital provides a sociological WD-40 (Putnam 2001: 23) As each of the forms of capital is based within a broader civic context it means that the family members have to be engaged with others for capital to be useful to them. The more active and fulfilling the civic culture around the family, the more useful and important the social capital is to them(Putnam 2001). Each of these forms of capital have to be balanced against one another, bonding social capital can lead to strong group solidarity but also the creation of ‘outsiders’. Whilst too much bridging capital can lead to little solidarity and a constant shifting of positions and roles. It is the blend of these two forms of social capital that characterises the role and position of an individual or group. 2.32
We deploy alongside the concept of social capital that of cultural capital,
which intertwines with social capital. We differentiate between national cultural capital and local cultural capital. The former indicates that the holder has attended a site of learning, been exposed to codified knowledge that is accepted beyond the local area and has various cultural competences that are useful outside of their immediate area. In contrast to this we also use the term local cultural capital, which are cultural markers or competences which are specific to the group, useful within it but not recognised as being so outside the group. For example, the subtle cultural marker of a local accent or the use of specific words might provide an individual with local cultural capital. Yet outside the group it may not be recognised or may even be a source of ridicule. It is the balance between these two forms of capital and how they intersect with the forms of social capital that is of interest in the rest of the report. As the flows and forces arraigned at a particular time change, so the way in which cultural capital comes into play changes. Family strategy 2.33
We frequently refer to families having a strategy, it is useful to actually move
beyond the general nature of that term and think about it with more precision. A family strategy is a useful idea for making us more sensitive to the role that families play in contemporary society and the resources they can muster in difficult times. In 18
this sense it is a metaphor, allowing us to think about families having purpose and resources. We would suggest rather that we should move beyond that point toward thinking about how families have adopted concrete plans for coping and adjusting to change. We will try to explain how farming families have coped with the changes that they have been part of and how they have made their way through these changes. 2.34
At the most general level almost all changes that are made can be described as
adaptive and reasonable scenarios can be created to explain most changes. What we propose is the need to construct a frame that takes the analysis beyond the superficial to examine changes that are deliberate attempts to pursue one choice chosen from amongst many. To do this it is necessary to view families as a unit, which have some power to make meaningful changes, but that power is limited by forces and flows beyond their control. Strategy is a military term and implies making decisions over a longer time frame that may be initially costly, but ultimately serve a longer-term end. It implies the ability to make decisions in a calculated manner, deferring pleasure and being braced against short-term discomfort. It also requires that the strategist have longer-term goals and the desire to realise them - this is a set of assumptions that it cannot be taken for granted. 2.35
Family farmers make the analytical task involved in considering strategy a lot
easier. Part of what distinguishes family farmers in contemporary society is the unity between the dwelling place of the family and the economic activities of the family. Family Farmers frequently have a range of decisions to make that other families do not because their living place is merged with their work place. Because of this family strategy in farming families is much more easily discernable, as it is reflected in the management of the farm and in the process of transferring the farm between generations. It could be said that the demands of the farm make some different demands on farming families but also make their strategies more visible. 2.36
Whilst families who do not have such direct control or ownership of their
economic resources may make strategic decisions about them, their opportunity to enact those changes is more limited. Decisions made by farming families can be 19
discerned in the landscape of their farm, the animals and crops that they raise, or the farmhouse they live in. Most farming families aspire to pass not just the assets of the farm but the farm business itself onto the next generation. This is what Pierre Bourdieu described as a ‘guiding principle’ in the farming family, a cultural norm that influences their behaviour (Bourdieu 1999). Rather than sitting down to formulate a strategy as external researchers might term it, families respond through these deeply held principles. The desire to pass the farm onto the next generation in turn governs the family’s strategy toward the farm business and many of the dynamics within the family. Within farming families, we can quickly identify the means by which people can make strategic choices, and the ends to which they might make such decisions. What remains is to decide on which choices they might be able to make and suggest the processes through which they make such decisions. Summary 2.37
A range of forces potentially drive agricultural change ranging from the
process of globalisation to changes in consumer tastes and demands and changes during the life course at the farm household level. In addition, unanticipated events can drive change, the most notable example of which in the very recent period is FMD. Most previous research suggests however, that many farmers will stick to tried and tested practises with radical changes to the configuration of the business or the decision to leave farming taken only after all other alternatives have been exhausted. Common indicators of this process refer to changes in farm size and the number of diversified holdings. In developing a new conceptual approach to the family farm and refocusing on the role of the family a range of new factors are revealed such as the development of social and cultural capital. Previous research has highlighted the significance of internal farm household factors, such as retirement and succession, in triggering change and evidence from the United States suggests that those with greater links off the farm are better informed and better positioned to adapt to drivers of change. On the other hand, those in greatest economic difficulty frequently become more isolated from networks of social support and association. The following chapters analyse a range of both conventional and unconventional indicators of farming change and explore associations between social and cultural capital, farm household characteristics and the development of adaptive responses. 20
21
Chapter 3 Patterns of change Introduction 3.1
In order to set the context for some of the detailed tactics and strategies
adopted by survey farmers and their families this chapter explores some of the broader changes experienced by farmers in the area. It is impossible to discuss recent farming change, particularly in the study area with out a discussion of the experience of FMD. Rather than catalogue the incidence of the disease, numbers of livestock culled, etc we have examined how it felt to be potentially facing the disease and the experience of those confined to their farms. In addition, the chapter explores the more insidious activity of regularly shooting bull calves, the erosion of collective farming identity and aspects of the networks of support and social association in the study area. The pattern of how these worries and pressures are discussed suggests a movement from the particular to the general, with some anxieties being firmly rooted on the farm, such as shooting calves, whilst others are more general such as the threat of globalization. More general threats such as the global market, represent in part, a feeling of insecurity in a rapidly changing world, when many certainties had been damaged, not just a recognition of a changing market place. Perceptions of Change One of the first perceptions of change was the ironic joke, laughing at what had happened and their role in it. The first ironic joke would come during the explanation of how the research came about, when it was explained that Michael Winter the student 20 years ago was a professor now; ‘Well he did better than I out if, didn’t ‘e’ (Mr Luther). In these statements intimation was everything, rather than being an aggressive attack on someone else there was regret at not having done better themselves, that opportunities and possibilities were offered but not taken up. This self-deprecating humour was extended into the widely irrelevant question about labour or equipment sharing with neighbours. It was something most people could remember even if they had not taken part in it themselves and so even raising the 22
question would raise an ironic laugh. Yes, they knew precisely what it was and for many it remained a good idea, but it was lost, which was their fault but in a way that was not precisely explained or understood. Something had gone and they did not even realise how or why it had gone. Laughter was a resort that focused blame not on themselves but on others. Sociologists during studies of the US agricultural depression of the early 1980’s found that black, self mocking humour became a regular feature of the agricultural community. With jokes such as ‘why don’t you bury a farmer 6ft down – so that he can still reach up and grab the subsidy cheque’ capturing the tenor of the times (Dudley 2000). Whilst the ironic jokes from the farmers in this study were gentle, the same tone of self-depreciation and the loss of something that they valued but could not control was present. Laughter was a way of bringing this into the conversation but without threat, to treat it both lightly but also mark it out as important. Only two questions were inserted into the interviews on a regular basis, the first being – ‘why don’t you ask me when I last had a holiday?’. Several families agreed that this would have been an illuminating question, not just to provide an opportunity to discuss the fact that they had not had a holiday for many years, but also so they could demonstrate a change. Most families would recall taking holidays, either a series of long days out or often a foreign holiday. It was also something they felt now marked them out, saturated with images of other people taking several holidays a year, they had not taken one in many years. In what appeared to be a society of increasing leisure they felt themselves to be the exceptions. The other question was about the best time, ‘why don’t you ask me about the best time we’ve had in farming?’. Mr Braddick was particularly insistent on this point, for him the best he had had in farming was the years just immediately after the first survey was undertaken, ‘back when there was money in farming’. Mr Reary had a similar perspective in that for him it was a time when the relationship between output and money was direct. He recalled the simplicity of raising lambs, putting them in his van and selling them at market, returning with the cash quite literally in his hands. These stories of ‘glory days’ served as markers not just of men looking 23
back to the prime, but also of a movement away from situations which they felt they understood and controlled. Interestingly none of the women spoke of good times in farming, but they did talk about what they had lost. The difference in emphasis possibly reflecting the shifts in the position of women, as the hard times have given them a new role. 3.2
To talk about the changes in agriculture and how the respondents felt about
them took a series of questions rather than one and it required an understanding of how specific words were used. Everybody was asked questions about what they thought about the quality of their life, their ability to pay bills and what they thought success was in life. Analysing these together helps to reveal what was being felt about the changes. These discussions were often limited by the very situations that created the problems being discussed. Time for reflection or opportunities to get away from the farm were few, so many of the problems were discussed in a very ‘raw’ manner. Many of the changes had happened very recently or were still taking place, the discussion of them was part of a process of recognising these changes and starting to form opinions on them. Some respondents had had an opportunity to reflect and discuss the issues whilst others were working at forming their thoughts and opinions about them. 3.3
There was frequently a resistance to answering questions about how one
might react to future events or thinking about the future. This was linked to the mind, and a realisation that you might face new problems from a very different place: No, I don’t know, until something like this crops up it’s difficult to, you wouldn’t know, cos you’d obviously be in a different state of mind. (Mr Pierson)4 The reluctance to answer questions about the future was in part reluctance to speak about changes that had not yet been processed – either talked or thought through fully. This talking through, which for some people the interviews represented, also required an emotional not just an intellectual response. The relationship between the emotions and the intellect is a central part of coping with all that has happened. Mr Vodden in a reflection about his Milk co-op thought the following:
24
I was talking to someone the other day, he said ‘We’ve gotta all join together’. Well, you know, he’s just been off, you know, he’s been off, he was in his own little group trying to sell direct, now he wants to come back, he’s joined Milk Link again, well you know, if we’d all stuck together at the beginning we would’ve been better off. But never mind. That’s bygone days, that’s bygone. (Mr Vodden) The past does not bear too much reflection and there is little point in harbouring illfeeling, the past must be consigned to the past. The Impact of FMD 3.4
Frequently respondents did not mention that they had had the disease, its
presence was an assumption that they did not seek to explain. In several interviews, FMD was only mentioned later in the discussion, as one factor within the range of problems that were faced. It frequently arose when the interviewees were asked to imagine a time of difficulty and what they might do to get themselves through it. Most people switched to discussing what they had done during their most recent crisis – foot and mouth disease. All of the families expressed a similar set of responses, as they crisis unfolded. 3.5
The Mattern family represents most articulately the series of responses the
other interviewees indicated. Firstly a wave of support from people off the farm, the telephone constantly ringing and eventually a weariness about the phone ringing, of not wanting to discuss it with anyone anymore. The Mattern family had been surrounded by farms that were culled and the smoke from the pyres had engulfed the farm suffocating some younger animals. Mr Mattern - Well, I mean, that it was you the phone was going constantly really, wannit, everybody was ringing everybody. I mean it was fine for the first three weeks, then after that it got to be a real pain, didn’t it really Mrs Mattern – Yeah. You just wanted to be left alone. Mr Mattern – The last thing you wanted to speak about was foot and mouth again, wasn’t it.
4 All of the names of the participants in the project have been changed, using names drawn randomly from the telephone directory.
25
The children were unable to go to school and the whole family did not leave the farm for 3 months and did not get to the end of the lane, which is effectively their drive for 6 weeks. Mr Mattern – I mean, there was foot and mouth, so I mean we didn’t move for 3 months, I didn’t even go to the end of the land for six weeks.
The family drew on its own resources, and in time found that having to answer the concerns of others interrupted the routines they used to survive. 3.6
This time had been personally very costly, Mr Mattern did not hide the pain
that it had caused; Mr Mattern – You know, we felt it was bad at the time. If only we’d known. But so I mean that messed, I was gonna say buggered up, but you’re recording.
Not becoming overwhelmed by it all, not addressing it directly was clearly part of making it through, You know, I mean, there were people in tears and one thing and another, but I mean, it was n’t no good getting like that. I mean, I know didn’t have it but you dreamt you had it every night, and every morning when you looked at everything it was a greater period of stress, you know, than if you didn’t have it. Cos once you had it, wasn’t it, you know then. I mean, obviously you still had the business of disposing of it all of it, but again, I mean, we saw that, it was only just up the road……so it may as well have been ours they were putting up there really.(Mr Mattern)
Mr Mattern intuitively realised that the greatest distress was realised amongst those on D notices and next contiguous cull areas. The not knowing corroded confidence, and meant that the workload was higher for longer. Those farms that had been culled although having the stress of the cull rested afterward and reflected on what to do next. Whilst their neighbours continued with harder workloads, with the extra work and worry added to it. Mr Cowlard reflected the sheer fatigue of this: So I mean, we had a D restriction placed on us within a day of it breaking out of this end, that carried right on until they lifted D notices back then, well…can’t think when it was. Erm… well, probably ten months ago now because that’s when I was allowed to take the bull over to the other farm. (Mr Cowlard)
For the two groups of farmers there was a terrible balance sheet, the grief and shock of the cull, followed by a period of reflection and rebuilding. For those not culled a terrible anxiety and the attrition of living with the restrictions. Each led to a particular pattern.
26
3.7
Each route from the disease had a different pattern of effects, as the
consequences of the cull worked through their family and the business. As Mr Mattern and Mr Cowlard demonstrate the restrictions to contain the disease, it left them isolated on their farm. It destroyed their ability to go off the farm during the period of bio-security measures and damaged the routines that underpinned their social life. Mrs Sainton in reflecting on her patterns of going out and taking part in sporting activities saw this clearly; I mean, since foot and mouth things have changed (Mrs Sainton).
In the winter of 2002, the pattern of this change remained unclear, but most of the interviewees saw it clearly as marking a change. Mr Cowlard reported that his wife’s mobile hairdressing business had yet to recover from the restrictions. Those who had been culled had also been presented with a new opportunity through re-stocking. In searching for and buying a new herd, they had frequently been able to leave the area. Particularly for those with pedigree or Organic herds the search had led them beyond the local area. Several families that had been culled had also been able to cancel their debts through the compensation they received and so face the future with greater certainty. The randomness of disease and the measures to stop it had played an important role in strategies the families were able to follow.
They shoot calves don’ t they? 3.8
What happened to the culled animals was not discussed, but the levels of stock
held by farms and the fate of calves was a constant theme. Mr Vodden was amazed at the level of stock before the culls, far in excess of what he had expected and the reason he believed for the growing size of many herds was the reluctance of farmers to keep shooting calves. With the live export market closed and no domestic veal market, Bull calves had become a problem. Mr Pierson and his family had developed a major beef enterprise because Just could do it. I just could not go pulling calves off at three o’clock in the morning then shooting them. It’s just, the whole idea. I mean if there was no…. if that was no then yeah. I mean, we’ve actually taken a decision now that we’ll shoot all the continental heifers, all the beef heifers cost there’s nothing in that. But it is with a heavy heart but I certainly won’t do it myself, somebody else’ll come in and do that. (Mr Pierson)
27
The only money they were making was a subsidy for the animal when it was older, but they were unable to accept the waste represented by shooting a calf. Mr Vodden had to rely on his Son No. I couldn’t shoot them. I hated to be there really. Stephen dealt with that, he was actually better at dealing with it than I was. I didn’t like dealing with it at all. When you get out in the middle of the night and, you know, you’re please the cow’s born and the next morning he’s shot, you know, I mean (Mr Vodden)
At the end of each of these sentences the farmer laughs, trying to shake of the gloom the discussion has brought. Mr Cowlard was in a very different place unable to separate himself from it, he had suffered a very unpleasant twist of fate; The first sixty cows that I put to Friesian Holstein, I had three heifer cows, so I shot fifty-seven calves in a matter of two months. I tell you, it hurts. When you was brought up to rear everything that’s born and you’ve fought to make it live and now you lift the back leg and you see it’s a bull cow and you say “well, it’s gotta be shot. What’s the point? (Mr Cowlard)
For many of the farmers shooting calves negated the logic of farming, it offended the purpose of what they did and so hit to the core of their identity. The logic of market rationality dictated shooting the calves, whilst the logic of farming meant raising it to be of productive use. Many farms were running beef because they could shoot no more calves. 3.9
Quickly this issue became linked with the broader issue of the predicament
that farming was facing. Most of the farmers were well aware that they were twisting their business to accommodate the swelling beef herd, and if they realised any profit at all it was through subsidy schemes. Mr Vodden had discussed this with others, raising the issue of the how a welfare measure was not doing much for the animal’s welfare. His co-op feared the logic of the argument, to have milk you have to have calves and so people would move against having milk, so undermining their business still further. Mr Pierson realised that the amount of calves being reared as beef was similarly leading to depressed prices, apart from in certain sectors. Alex Sims realised the way in which the live export ban had undermined their survival strategy. [a source of income]It was before the exporters, live export was stopped, you see. That was, the calves and cows and things like that, added quite a bit to our income in the past now we’re just relying solely on the milk cheque, that is, you know, the main thing. (Alex Sims)
28
Tough farmers such as Mr Cowlard shot calves and paid the emotional price, others tried to make a business out of it, and all realised the way it had made them more vulnerable to the vagaries of the global market. Unwilling to raise the issue in public for fear of backlash from the very forces that had initiated the new policy, the farm families literally suffered in silence.
Hardship and Poverty It is not much comfort to admit poverty, and thus many people may deny it, even though they would welcome the benefits that would flow from policies designed to improve or ameliorate their position. (Pete Alcock Understanding Poverty 1993 p9) 3.10
One of the many paradoxes of poverty is that it is both an exclusionary force
and a claim against the rest of society. As Dan Elder notes, adjusting the claims made by a family is one way of the family adapting to a new situation. If family farmers were to view themselves as poor or to be viewed by others to poor, it would be a major change in their status. Studies in North America have found family farmers at times to be both absolutely poor – lacking the basic necessities of life and in relative poverty -assets compared to their peers (Lasley 1995; Lasley, Leistritz et al. 1995; Meyer 1995). It is difficult to establish the first case of absolute poverty in this study, but discussion of the second form of poverty stems from our research in this area. 3.11
As noted in chapter 2, the general economic climate for agriculture has been
very harsh in the past five years. There has been a general fall in the profitability of many farming sectors, a rise in bankruptcies and particular hardship amongst tenant farmers. Whilst this is undoubtedly the case there have also been countervailing flows in the general farming economy. The first of these is that land prices have not fallen (see Figure 3.1) and have often risen consistently.
29
Figure 3.1 - Land prices by nation 1990-2000
12,000
10,000
8,000 £ pe r he 6,000 ct ar
England Wales Scotland Northern Ireland
4,000
2,000
0 1990-2
1997
1998
1999
2000
Year
Source (DEFRA 2002) 3.12
At the same time along with all homeowners, the price of domestic property
has consistently risen. The values of the assets held by the families have consistently risen even while their incomes have plummeted. Against these assets, farmers as a group have very low levels of borrowing and since the recession has started have moved to reduce those (see Figure 3.2). Figure 3.2 - All bank borrowing by Farms 97/98 - 98-99 50 45 40 35 30 % of Fa 25 rm s 20
All bank borrowing 97/98 All bank borrowing 98/99
15 10 5 – Zero
Under £20,000
£20,000 to under £50,000
£50,000 to under £100,000
£100,000 and above
Scale of borrowing
Source (DEFRA 2002)
30
3.13
This is an important background to the discussion of the agricultural
recession, as during this time of a low level of income the long-term assets of farmers have appreciated. The importance of this to the viability of farm business and the likely social successes of farming families is profound. 3.14
None of the farmers who took part in our study described themselves as poor
or spoke about living in a poor neighbourhood or area. They were not making a social claim about poverty, but as Alcock comments, to be perceived as poor is not something that a group would necessarily invite (Alcock 1993). Yet, clearly some families (such as the Sainton’s, Fishlock’s and Madge’s) were on the edge of great difficulty. Either they did not own their assets or had very small assets in comparison to their peers, so were struggling to maintain their farm business. The Small’s and the Knill’s had surrendered their farm business but both retained their home and land. In addition they had secured work and had a better cash income than their peers who remained in farming. The hardship that we are describing here is predominantly that of attempting to pursue a decision that the families have made: a decision to remain in farming or at least to remain living on the family farm. 3.15
Aspects of this decision contradict some of the central elements of the idea of
poverty. Poverty is about the absence of choice, that your situation cannot be readily remedied by choices that you can make and that the options open to you are limited. Poverty may also be associated with the life course of the family, for example families with young children, and with no or only one partner working, experience relative poverty. The families in our survey have chosen to remain in farming (or at least continue living on the farm), the only family to leave - the Braddick’s anticipated realising more than £400,000 for their farm, enough to buy a house and have considerable investments. All of the other families were making a decision to see farming through because of how it was part of their identity. 3.16
Max Weber in his work on the roots of capitalism reflected on how the spirit of
Protestantism aided the pioneers of industry, helping them defer immediate gains in order to build a better business in the long-run. There are considerable parallels with the decisions of the families in our survey. Many of them now own businesses 31
with very few liabilities, stripped of any excess and reliant entirely on their labour. If prices were to rise, they would very quickly see those rises translated into business profits. With a background of an appreciating asset base for many of the families it may yet have proved to be the most economically rational decision to persist in farming. 3.17
The final area where the hardship that the farming families have been living
through diverges from poverty is the life-chances that they are able to present to their children. Conger and Elder, in their long term study of children from farming families who experienced the recession of the early 1980’s, concluded that they eventually out performed their peers in school and a range of psychological assessments. Evidence from large-scale studies in the UK indicates that having assets protects individuals against the worst effects of poverty. The ‘asset effect’ means access to relatively modest sums of money, or assets that protect the family from debts that are not supportable or prolonged periods on benefit. Even a low level of savings or assets £600 or more has been able to secure people from the worst effects of poverty and social exclusion (Bynner and Paxton 2001). Almost by definition, to be a farming family they must have access to resources in excess of this and therefore have avoided the worst effects of the economic downturn. Even when they have not had access to cash, they have always had banking credit and assets to balance against those debts. The asset effect means that people have options when facing hardship, and remain more deeply involved civic life than those who do not have such options. Assets can then be seen as an effective hedge against long-term social exclusion, but not a shield against suffering or tough choices. Its effects can be seen to ripple through the social engagement of the families in the study. These are the anchors that underpin the tenacity of the families, and without which many more of them would have been forced from active farming. 3.18
We do not wish to downplay or belittle the suffering and distress caused by the
decision made by the families in this study to keep on farming. The rest of this report records it in considerable detail, rather it is to place their economic hardship in relation to that of others. We cannot describe anyone who took part in the survey as being in long-term or absolute poverty, but many have certainly lowered their expectations about their standard of living. Backed up by considerable assets all of 32
the families have made a decision to persist in farming when they have an alternative however unpalatable that might be to them. Those assets have protected them against the worst of problems of poverty and may yet offer them a financially secure future.
Worry 3.19
‘Worry’ was not a word commonly used by the respondents, and the
interviewer was far more likely to use it than the interviewees were. ‘Mind’ in the context of the local dialect refers not to the abstract workings of consciousness but the internal thinking and emotional processes of an individual, things were on peoples ‘minds’ and they ‘minded’ about slights. ‘Mind’ in this instance is both intellectual – rational, calculating and affective, an interesting unity. To worry was far more specific, and tended to relate to a specific item rather than a generalised angst. This can be seen in how the interviewees answered questions about their problems. 3.20
The use of the word ’worry’ tended to be focused on a specific problem and
that was most frequently a specific bill or bills in general. It also tended to be associated with some process or group external to the farm or family. Mrs Sainton displays this in her concern about bills and the quality of her life; Well, I can’t say that it’s not really worse, the only worry is being able to pay bills, that is the main (Mrs Sainton)
The Sims’s, in discussing watching the pyres spread up their valley, again view it as something external; as worry is not internalised it does not need to be talked about: Not, really. I mean, it was pretty worrying there, it was just a roller-coaster of emotions there for several weeks really, you know, it was coming closer and closer and our neighbours were taken out. It was very worrying but we never sort of, never thought of ringing a help-line, did us, just plod on. (Alex Sims)
Mr Rodmell in his discussion associated ‘worry’ with a passivity that farmers should resist; Well, you’d be worried about it but you can’t do anything about them.
33
For him being told not to ‘worry’ was indicative of a patronising attitude by external actors, in this case his own Union; And to bring that in, NFU have said ‘Don’t worry, we’ll hold courses for you to learn how to do it. To fill in forms out’. Thank you very much, walk all over us, well have some of this. (Mr Rodmell)
The dominance of this construction of worry in our sample indicates that the very way in which language is used has to be carefully considered to understand the processes at work. These are not only psychological questions but also ones that have to do with how problems – farming, personal and emotional - are discussed within the wider group. 3.21
In discussing the problems of the area with a lay Methodist minister, he only
used the word ‘mind’ once and the same with the word ‘worry’, during the course of an hour-long interview. Mind appeared in relation to the emotional and intellectual struggle to resolve problems: And the very fact that if you are on your own and you are in trouble then your mind goes round and round and round the same problems all the time and you can spend a whole morning trying to work yourself out of one small financial situation, how do I pay this particular bill. You can look at it from all angles (Minister)
In reflecting on the tough times his community had faced and the consequences for individuals, he commented that there are a lot people in these community who fall by the wayside and one of the problems with depression is that people tend to isolate themselves and when you have not seen someone in the community for sometime you stop worrying about them (Minister)
The mind is a general merging of intellect and emotion, whilst worry is external and specific. 3.22
Other words conjured very different responses about how people felt about the
events around them. The word ‘pressure’ – along with ‘stress’ and ‘tension’ was an sure indicator of a farm on the edge. Out of the 10 interviews studied in depth, 4 did not use any of these words, 3 did so only in a minor way but the 2 of the 3 farms on the edge used them quite frequently. These two farms were distinguished by having a fair degree of dissent within the family. Mr Cowlard when reflecting on the pressures in his life commented that: Yeah, that’s well, Linda said I’ve aged ten year in the last twelve months, so. But then that’s life.
34
Things on the Sims’s farm were not going well, and the word pressure was building particularly in one of them; Well, it’s got worse really in the way its more pressure, pressure all day, seven days a week. You just can’t shut it off, you know this is the trouble when gotta be there and see to everything. And … that’s the problem init….It’s pressure, mental pressure, God knows how much fricking paperwork every week, you know. (Alex Sims)
Confined to the farm, working endlessly without a strategy that would allow them to emerge, the sense of constriction was growing.
Solace and Support 3.23
Religious life was an important part of dealing with the troubles that had beset
the families. Of all the families 59% reported attending church, with 15% attending every week, but 31% attending every other week, 46% annually and 8% for family events. In the 1982 survey 50% of the respondents identified themselves as Methodists, with that figure rising to 56% in 2002 and 31% CoE. The real changes had been around those who identified themselves with no church at all or belonged to a house church (6%), although in this instance the group had recently taken over an old chapel for their services. Congregational life remains important in the lives of those taking part in the survey, although distinct gender division has appeared with women attending church more frequently than men, many of whom admitted they would attend more often, but for the pressures of work. 3.24
Denominational subscription in many villages had become less important as
with falling church attendance in many villages, Christian worship has become focused on one ecumenical service a week. The Methodist ministers operate a crossdenominational support and advice service, based on their extensive contacts with the farming community. Asides from best friends and family, the Minister or Priest was the more likely person to be called upon by men to for advice about a family issue (30%). This means that as an everyday or weekly source of support the Minister may play a vital role in identifying those who are experiencing problems. An added dimension to church attendance is the meeting with the same social group on a regular basis, and going to church is often one of the only such contacts reported.
35
This means that when friends are identified as a source of support and succour many of these friends will be those who attend the same church.
Networks 3.25
The whole study is based on an old network in that the original 1982 study
group were drawn from the records and suggestions of an NFU branch. Although the families may not have known each other, they shared an affiliation to a common organisation. In one way this would indicate that the study started from a base of people were prepared to join and participate in organisations. Both of the surveys sought to gauge the importance of three networks; shared or bartered labour, sporting or social ties and civic groups. Several studies have pointed to the importance of strong ties holding a community together but equally, the role of those on the margins of the group bring the opportunity for innovation. As with many of the points made here it is hard to separate out the importance of networks, as they have a bearing on the business, the community and the family. 3.26
The first survey asked a panel of questions about the sharing and bartering of
labour between neighbours and family members. To overcome the short-term demand for labour, equipment or even finance, a family could call on their neighbours or relatives for help. During harvest time neighbours would work on each other’s farm to ensure that it was taken in, in time. Although this labour was offered as a gift – no money changed hands – it was not free of obligation. In return for this gift, the recipient was expected to help on their neighbour’s farm. A round of gifts and obligations was apparent forming a complex social economy that did not involve money. 3.27
These questions were replicated exactly in the second survey but were not
used in any of the interviews. Neighbours helped one another in an emergency and were quite happy to do so, but aside from that the exchange of labour or equipment was on a more formal basis. Instead of the gift of volunteering to help, contracting and sharing through organised ‘rings’ was the new economy. The formality of this economy should not be over-estimated. It was not the introduction of an unfettered 36
market rather the overlaying of an older moral economy with a newer one. Several farms in the survey took on contracting work for particular tasks; from bailing through to the preparation of cowshed floors or dairy management software. Frequently this contracting was undertaken on the neighbouring farm and usually within the immediate locality. Those who sold only their labour to contractors did so to support their farm, contracting themselves out only when there was a gap to be filled. On one farm the relationship involved no cash – the work was deducted from the costs of the same contracting on their home farm. Cash was involved but the market was limited and local. 3.28
The same level of a localised economy was evident in the other new area of
sharing and bartering - machine or labour rings and buying co-ops. The area’s labour ring had been started in the early 1980s, to match farms with a shortage of labour to those in need of some work. Nearly twenty years later it still operated at a low level, providing a support to many farms in the area. Only one farm in the study was part of a machine ring, where the farms surrounding one hamlet owned equal parts of several expensive and specialised pieces of equipment. Buying co-ops were more prevalent with 4 farms involved in buying co-ops where they pooled their ordering power with their neighbours to gain leverage over suppliers. There was considerable evidence of the buyers actively breaking the co-ops down by offering one farmer a deal that undermined the co-operative spirit of the co-op. Two farmers admitted to taking deals that broke the co-op’s rules to gain a personal advantage. In the networks of the ‘business’, there was a tension between a competitive individualism and recognition of the need to co-operate.
The collapse of solidarity 3.29
There are two communities that the farming families take part in, the broader
one of civic society and that of farmers. Frequently families knew only their farming neighbours, other neighbours changed too frequently or did not share very much with them. It would appear that the farming families continue to play an important but limited civic role in the broader community, even whilst the farming community is in difficulty. Community involvement was a constant feature of those who took 37
part in the survey although these commitments were restricted to a narrow range of organisations and roles. Most common was to be a school governor, and that was usually at the village primary school their children attended, but not the secondary school that the children attended later. Next after this was to be a member of the NFU committee, or a farmer’s organisation such as the CLA or the Young Farmers. In the 2002 sample there were former or acting committee members of the NFU, the CLA, the Young Farmers and several buying co-ops or labour rings. Consistent with earlier comments there is a strong gender division in this with no women taking part in the farmer’s organisations.
38
Local Media – global worries 3.30
The use of national media is a frequent part of daily life, with the national TV
news being a regular feature of most people’s lives. It is in the use of the radio that displays the attachment to locality, with ‘Radio Devon’, and the commercial stations ‘Lantern’ and ‘Pirate’ being firm favourites (see Table 3.1). Reading a newspaper reflected the attachment to locality most firmly, with the ‘Western Morning News’ being the firm favourite, and 88% of people taking the various local weekly newspapers. The implications of these preferences is to re-enforce the feelings of localism. The Western Morning News gives far greater prominence to the reporting of agricultural stories than any national daily newspaper would. 3.31
Radio is the most interactive of all the mass-public media and re-enforces
locality with dedications to local people and telephone contributions from them. People from the study area also made regular contributions to programmes. This is particularly so for the small commercial stations whose broadcasting is limited to a geographical area. As a contradistinction the most formally educated person taking part in the survey was the only regular listener to Radio 4. Radio was a constant backdrop to daily life with it being listened to in the car, the tractor cab, the milking parlour and the kitchen. Daily practices not just the accident of birth re-enforce the feelings of locality and localism.
39
Table 3. 1 - Use of news media Frequency of watching TV news:
% of farm operators
No of farm operators
Daily Every other day Weekly News channel most watched: BBC1 ITV Sky Radio station listened to most: Radio 1 Radio 2 Radio 4 BBC Devon Local Commercial Frequency of newspaper reading:
72 22 6
13 4 1
76 18 6
13 3 1
13 20 13 27 27
2 3 2 4 4
Daily Every other day Weekly Other Newspaper most frequently read:
54 15 23 8
7 2 3 1
The Sun The telegraph The Mirror FT The Mail The Independent Western morning News
17 8 8 8 8 8 42
2 1 1 1 1 1 4
Going Out 3.32
Opportunities to get off the farm and to meet other people were particularly
important in the narratives of many families, many of the men remembered the Farmer for Action protests specifically because they got off the farm. Figure 3.3 demonstrates the most of the families were able to take a meal together off the farm at least once a month. In considering the breakdown of these figures it is noticeable that those who derive all of their income from farming get out for meals noticeably less frequently than the other groups, and those who go out for a meal every six months or less are only full time farmers. The labour demands of the farm and questions of cash income may lie behind this difference.
40
Figure 3.3: Going to a Restaurant5 80 70 60 50
All Farms FT
40
Class I
30
Class II
20 10 0 weekly restaurant
3.33
forthightly
monthly
3 monthly
6 monthly
annually
other
Further analysis (not shown) reveals that those families who rely on farming
for all of their income go out less across a range of activities such as visiting friends and going to the cinema than those who have other sources of income. Those with the least reliance on their income coming solely from the farm go out most often and visit their friends far more often than the other families. Living Locally 3.34
Being a ‘local’ has a particular resonance and importance in the study area,
even within the area there are sections of the countryside that are viewed as being even more remote, the study area being known to some as the ‘badlands’. Frequently however, being a local seems to have combined with being marginal or feeling marginal, as events that have swept across the area have re-enforced feelings of locality. The first consistent element of being local is being born in the locality; the radar diagram from 1982 shows a degree of locality being (Figure 3.4). There are two strong groups, the first born within twenty miles of the place that they farm now, and with 27% farming where they grew up. The second group evident in the diagram are those who have come from further than 100 miles away. These seem to reflect a residential structure of new entrants to the area, and those who have been farming in the area for several generations. Leaving aside those who can trace their family back 5
Full time in this context means that the family receives 90% or more of its income from the farm,
41
to the early medieval period, the average year for purchasing the farm is 1956. The data from 2002 obviously shows an absence of that pattern, as those who did not take part in 1982 survey, were born to families who had settled in the area.
Figure 3.4: Current distance from where Farmer was born 0-9 miles 70 60 50 40 30 over 100+
10-19 miles
20 10
1982
0
50-99 miles
2002
20-49 miles
The NFU 3.35
As can be seen in Figure 3.5 the membership of the NFU has collapsed, with
the membership dropping from 91% to 44%. This is even more remarkable as the original sample list was drawn from NFU branch records. At the same time, membership of the Country Land Owners (CLA) has declined with support of the new radical group Farmers for Action (FFA) appearing. This decline has an importance much wider than the role of the NFU; it points towards how farmers conceive their identity and social role (Flynn, Lowe et al. 1996). Joining the figures together show three groups appearing; a rump hanging onto the NFU, another with multiple memberships and another with no membership at all. It is not that farmers are no longer seeking representation, but that the form that representation takes has changed.
Class I part-time 50-90% of its income and Class II part-time 10-50% of its income from the farm.
42
Figure 3.5: Membership of Farmer's organisations compared
91
1982
2002
44.4
21 16.7
16.7
11.1 5.6
NFU
FFA
5.6
NFU&CLA
NFU&CA
NFU/CLA/CA
9
None
Organisation
3.36
In the 1982 survey respondents were asked about the effectiveness of the NFU
and 59% thought that it did some good. With the drop in the membership has come a drop in the perception of the efficacy of the Union. Although the membership of the FFA reported is low, the actual turn out by the farmers in the survey to FFA protests was higher. Even members of the local NFU council were happy to turn out to FFA protests. All of the protests that they had attended in the last 4 years were, bar one respondent, had been organised by the FFA. Several of the respondents had been on more than one protest, or held back because the dairy targeted was not the one to which they sent their milk. The radical FFA was seen as a stick with which the ordinary farmer could beat the NFU. 3.37
The anger directed at the NFU has yet to be fully analysed but one pithy quote
captures the flavour of the comment – ‘The NFU? – Bugger them!’ Yet, in this anger the farmers have lost the one vehicle that was theirs and theirs alone. They have lost a source of information about changes in the industry, an opportunity to meet their fellow farmers and to give the aspirations a direct voice. Or rather, they no longer believe that this is what the NFU represents for them, being either craven in the face of change or powerless to stop it, either way it is not worth belonging to or attending it’s meetings. In policy terms this means questions have to be raised about the 43
representativeness of the NFU and its ability to reflect the views of its membership. Secondly, it means that as a mechanism it is increasingly irrelevant to inform farmers about new policy or consult them about policy formation. In personal terms, it throws the individual increasingly back on their familial resources to secure and reenforce their identity, adding to the roles that the family has to fulfil. It is not that those who are not members are less interested in farming issues or policy matters, it is far from a question of apathy, but rather the perceived redundancy of the mechanisms of participation. Collective Identity 3.38
All communities need boundaries to define who belongs to the community
and those who do not. Just as much as communities need boundaries they need opponents, they need to recognise those groups and people that they are not. Graham Crow describes this as the creation of an oppositional solidarity, which binds the community together in the face of a common opponent (Crow 2002). Alberto Melucci in a more sophisticated reading of the process of collective identity, describes it has having three interconnected components (Melucci 1996). Those in the group create between them a cognitive definition of what they seek and the world in which they operate. This definition is re-enforced through language, ritual and daily practices, which leads to the second aspect of the collective identity that is formed by people with active relationships. The third aspect is an emotional investment, the identity is beyond rational calculation alone the shared identity is based on an emotional bond (Melucci 1996:70-71). An opponent or group that appears to be the opposite of this group aids the process of self-definition greatly. People can rally to what they are by clearly seeing what they are not in another group. 3.40 The whole survey is based on a group who at least once viewed themselves as sharing something with others in the sample in that they shared membership or association with the NFU. As noted elsewhere in this report that formal membership has declined but that does not mean that the collective identity has elapsed. Two areas where those in the survey could be seen to be as asserting the beginnings of a new identity are through the defence of hunting with hounds and opposition to supermarkets. As Melucci notes there is nothing automatic about collective identity, 44
it has to be actively built and maintained. We can show strong evidence that this process of forming a collective identity has been slowed by intra-rural disagreements. Not everyone in the sample agrees with hunting with hounds or disagrees with supermarkets. The stirrings of collective identity have been narrowly based around sectional interest rather than a common set of goals. 3.41
The interviewer never solicited information on hunting, did not venture their
own opinion and remained studiously quiet. Only Mr Bosence openly declared his opposition to the hunt, while several other families were careful to differentiate their support for shooting or fishing from hunting with hounds. Others sent coded messages of disliking ‘horsy people’ or remained silent on the subject, the Palmers and Rices’ were equivocal. The Knills’ cared little for the fox or for the actual hunt, but were passionate about the importance of the hunting in providing a social life for the area. A small group passionately defended the hunt as something under attack from another group and rallied to what they felt to be their identity. The most passionate defender of the right to hunt was not a farmer who actually hunted with hounds but a keen clay pigeon shooter – Mr Cowlard. Hunting was more the pursuit of a fox with hounds but an activity that some took to be axiomatic of rural life and others within the farming community disagreed with. Unable to agree on the topic, for most of the respondents it became an issue of further division rather than unity. 3.42
Mr Cowlard prefaced his defence of hunting with a defence of the status quo in
country areas: They don’t understand the countryside. Just like these people that came down from the towns and pay these ridiculous prices for houses and farms and the minute they get down here they wanna change it. They don’t like the smell of the countryside. Well, what the hell do ‘em want?
Mr Cowlard then rehearsed the rural myth of the ‘townie’ who confused clay pigeons and real pigeons in their opposition to hunting. He went on to discuss the opposition to hunting; And exactly the same as the anti-hunts people, they don’t live in the country, or they may live in the country but they are not country people, and that is the difference. And as far as I’m concerned I don’t really agree with stag hunting.
Mr Cowlard happily admitted to not allowing the hunt onto his land at all, as it disrupted the wildlife. Through the way in which his argument was constructed Mr Cowlard cleaved the rural and farming communities, Mr Bosence a life long farmer and stalwart of farmer’s organisations was dismissed as not a ‘real’ country person. 45
3.43
An alternative ‘Other’ against which a new collective identity could form is the
multiple retailers or supermarkets, but only a minority identified them as potential opponents. As discussed later the fear of the supermarkets deflated the price of Organic products was a reason for not converting to Organic production on two farms. The Rodmell family answered their own questions on the topic in the conversation between them, which they had obviously had several times before; Mr Rodmell jnr. – Well, you’d be worried about it but you can’t do nothing about them (laughter) Mrs Rodmell jnr. – about the supermarkets you see, about… Mr Rodmell jnr. – That’s what you have to live with. Mr Rodmell snr. – we got animals, we had to sell’em, because they were coming up to thirty months. Tesco say we’ll give you so and so. Was absolutely murdered on the prices. They knew they’d got exactly where they wanted us and by god they made the most of it. Mrs Rodmell jnr. – So it’s back to the theme of supermarkets
As price takers in a highly competitive global market the mediating role of the multiple retailers was of less direct concern than the Dairies that supplied the supermarkets. Most of the farmers felt that they might be able to persuade their coops in a way that would not be possible with the multiple retailers. 3.44
All of the dairy farmers had picketed a local dairy and for some of them it was
a memorable event as it was the only time they had been on a protest and it represented a rare journey away from the area. For most the result was that they got cold, dispirited and found the whole event to be a waste of their time. They had all chosen to picket only the milk factory that their co-op supplied, not seeing it as their ‘business’ to picket someone else’s or in support of another co-op. The only exception to this was Alex Sims, the only Farmers for Action (FFA) activist in the survey who had toured the area; Well, we picketed Dairy Crest’s milk factory several times, this time last year, wasn’t it. And I went to Totnes, St.Ivel plant down there, and also Tor Valley, the milk factory at North Tawton.
Alex Sims was the only person in the sample who had taken part in more than one protest. Only Mr Godbeer had taken part in the Countryside Alliance march and the Luther family had been part of protest against the disposal of culled animals in the locality. 46
3.45
Opposition and protest had been a highly factionalised activity that had served
to highlight the cleavages between the possible community of farmers rather than building a collective identity. Studies of many poor and struggling communities have highlighted the importance of social solidarity in helping individual families survive (Crow 2002). In the face of hardship co-operation and sharing can overcome barriers and aid a family’s survival. In the examples of these being effective, this solidarity has been built through finding a sense of community in part based on opposition to an Other. To build an ‘us ‘ they created a ‘them’; but in this area the negotiation of a ‘we’ was failing. The individualism of family farming constantly undermined the efforts at working co-operatively. Suppliers and buyers appear to make sure that when they got an opportunity they would try to break co-ops. As neighbours rarely shared labour or equipment on an informal basis the bonds of trust had been eroded. 3.46
Two of the three elements Melucci identified in a collective identity were
missing, they shared elements of a common world-view, but the ends identified were individualistic. There was no shared cognitive definition of the world, not even being able to recognise one another as country people. The blunt trauma of FMD, on top of the long hours and self-reliance of family farming broke down the active relationships through which bonds might have been created. There were deep emotional investments in the collective identity of being a farmer but these were scored through by the bonds of family and rested on previous affiliations, rather than active relationships. The disjuncture between the emotion invested and the lack of a collective identity was adding to the distress. As a perceived group, farmers were unable to defend or even represent themselves. Cleavages over hunting, co-op membership and rural identity not only undermined the possibility of creating a collective identity but also reinforced the feelings of powerlessness.
Summary 3.47
This chapter has described a range of changes in the recent and middle past
which may be partially an influence on the type of coping strategy adopted and 47
partially a consequence of different ways of coping. In the very recent past the fear of FMD spurred an increase in social contact (via the telephone) but later people coped by not endlessly discussing the disease and its implications. Although the impacts of FMD may last for years, the outbreak is over and there is now a feeling of needing to move on. On the other hand, the shooting of bull calves emerged strongly as an ongoing issue requiring difficult and personally costly decisions. 3.48
Contrary to expectations, we did not find any respondents suffering from what
can be described as long term, absolute poverty, although many were suffering from hardship. They had frequently been saved from the extremes of poverty by the assets of the farm and by avoiding debt, but many had also lowered their material expectations. Although hardship has been and was being experienced by many, this was frequently a result of a decision to stay farming. 3.49
Over the last twenty years some aspects of farming life have changed
considerably. The practise of neighbour-helping-neighbour has now all but disappeared other than in emergencies. Instead, contracting is the main way in which farmers are involved in the management of neighbour’s land. This is perhaps not unexpected but it is one of a number of ways in which the cohesion of the farming community and their role in wider rural society has eroded. Survey evidence also points to a withdrawal by farm family members from participation in civic society. In the past many have held positions such as school governor, sat on the parish council, etc, although few are involved in this way today. This withdrawal was not noted in the abstract by respondents but in the particular. For example, they regretted not going to church so often, or not getting off the farm. Membership of the NFU has fallen dramatically as a result of changing perceptions of its ability to represent the interests of farmers in the area, leading to the popular refrain: ‘The NFU? – Bugger them! At the same time, contemporary debates such as the future and legitimacy of hunting with dogs is causing division within farming society. Together, these changes point to a breakdown of collective identity.
48
Chapter 4 Negotiating the Edge: Indicators of Adoptions Introduction 4.1
Most previous research on agricultural change and survival strategies suggests
that the majority of farmers stick to ‘tried and tested’ practices and tactics, changing enterprise size, structure and so on before taking more radical actions either to enable survival or facilitate exit from farming. This chapter reviews such ‘indicators of adaption’ in the study area and identifies two key patterns of adaptive response:
• There is a divergence of strategies between farms with a split appearing between smaller, beef producing farms and larger, more technical dairy farms. •
To survive as a business the families have become both risk and debt averse, with a heavy emphasis on cash flow, with a commensurate vulnerability to changes in milk and beef prices.
Farm Size 4.2
One of the most common farming changes in recent years has been the change
in the size of farms. To understand how these changes might be a reflection of survival strategies of families, it is important to consider how the patterns in the survey differ from national trends. Nationally there has been a ‘hollowing out’ of farm sizes, with the middle sized farms declining in number, whilst smaller and then larger holdings have increased. For example, between 1995-2000 the number of small-holdings actually grew, whilst the amount of land held by large holdings increased. The proportion of holdings below 20 hectares rose from 40.7% of all holdings to 46.2%. At the same time the area of land on holdings over 300 hectares increased from 36.3% to 37.7%, but these holdings represented only 3.5% of all holdings in UK. The squeeze occurred in holdings between these sizes, as large farms 49
cemented their economic dominance and smaller units were integrated into the economy in different ways or simply attempted to ‘absorb’ change through an ongoing process of ‘belt tightening’ (see below). Figure 4.1 - Size of Farms compared 30 25 20 1982
15
2002
10 5
un
2+ 20
de
r2 0 20 .1 -4 0 40 .1 -6 60 .1 0 -8 0. 81 5 -1 10 00 12 1 12 1. 5 1 -1 4 1. 14 2 1. 6 -1 16 61 1. 9 -2 01
0
Size of farm (hectares)
4.3
Data from the survey clearly illustrates the change in farm sizes but also the
distribution of the size of the farms into two distinct groups (see Figure 4.1). In the first survey mean farm size was around 61 ha although the median was 43ha, with a range of larger farms. The change since then has seen the emergence of two distinct groups, one group farming between 40 –80 hectares and a second group farming between 100 – 160 hectares. There is also the tentative suggestion of a small group appearing at above 200 hectares, but this is far less distinct than the other two groups. 4.4
Table 4.1 below demonstrates quite clearly the bulk of respondents in the
current survey operated farms of less than 100 ha, a historical continuity from the earlier survey. However, it is also clear that the largest farms have become more significant in terms of their share of the area on surveyed farms. A minority of respondents on farms in excess of 100 ha are responsible for the bulk of the land. This can present policy makers with a dilemma. In order to influence the physical 50
appearance and environmental quality of the countryside the data points to a strategy of targeting the largest farms responsible for most land. However, the shift to rural policy and an increasing emphasis on rural development and by extension, people in the countryside, suggests that the bulk of smaller farmers are increasingly legitimate policy targets. Table 4.1: Farm size distribution 1982 survey1
Current survey
England
% of respondents
% of area
% of respondents
% of area
% of holdings
% of area
Less than 50 ha
37.5 (6)
16.1
33.3 (7)
9.8
67.1
14.7
50week 1 a week Pub 1
