Abstract
AbstractThis article considers the implications of the wider systemic shift from modernity to late modernity for the process of intergenerational farm transfer. The article argues that the shift from the collective to the individual, indicative of late modern society, is particularly pertinent in the context of intergenerational transfer, which has long been rooted in collective thinking. Drawing on the perspectives of incumbent farmers and potential successors, the article utilizes results from semistructured interviews with 29 farmers and 19 potential successors in Devon, England. Using a thematic analysis, the article provides a nuanced understanding of the impact of the systemic shift and the associated emphasis on the individual on successor identification. Although the article reaffirms understanding of successor creation as a collective process, determined by factors such as gender and birth order, it also identifies an emergent cohort of younger potential successors, for whom succession was the outcome of an evaluation of farming as a career. It concludes that, within the case study area, modernization is changing the way in which farm children are identifying themselves as “the successor.” The article suggests how this increasingly judicious approach to succession leaves reproduction of the family farm increasingly vulnerable to negative externalities.
Highlights
Late modern society in advanced capitalist countries is characterized by an increasing emphasis on the individual
The article reaffirms understanding of successor creation as a collective process, determined by factors such as gender and birth order, it identifies an emergent cohort of younger potential successors, for whom succession was the outcome of an evaluation of farming as a career
Within the case study area, modernization is changing the way in which farm children are identifying themselves as “the successor.”
Summary
Late modern society in advanced capitalist countries is characterized by an increasing emphasis on the individual. In its most basic sense, intergenerational farm succession represents the renewal of the family farm and refers to the process of the transfer of managerial control through generations. It typically, but not always, involves the transfer of ownership. In its most basic sense, the shift from the collective to the individual inherent to late modern society threatens to undermine the process of intergenerational farm transfer, which has been characterized by “family farm thinking” and facilitated by the precedence of collective or familial goals over individual ones (Villa 1999). The family farming literature has begun to consider the impact of this systemic change on the process of intergenerational farm transfer (Brandth and Overrein 2013; Fischer and Burton 2014; Villa 1999), prompting projections of a decline in the successful intergenerational transfer of family farms
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