Breaking ground: Multi-family farm entrepreneurs in Moroccan export agriculture

Abstract

While on a global scale the majority of farming is still organized around families, a sweeping observation across regional differences is that family farming takes on increasingly diversified forms. Within this context, hybrid concepts that bridge traditional notions have been suggested while research has also indicated an important interface between family farm businesses and multi-family farm structures. Drawing on this emerging body of literature, this paper develops the notion of ‘multi-family farm entrepreneurs’ to investigate the origin, background, and current organization of the families involved in agricultural export in Morocco. Based on extensive qualitative research, it is argued that the establishment of stable multi-family structures, which rely on active ‘cohesive work’, is key to understanding their success in the highly competitive and internationalized fruit and vegetable export sector. The paper demonstrates how family farm differentiation in the global South also takes place within the ‘upper’ level, with some family farmers developing entrepreneurial skills and becoming globally interconnected while contributing to a better understanding of the internal dynamics of this kind of farming.