Strategies for coping in capitalist agriculture: an examination of the responses of farm families in British agriculture

Abstract

Recent attempts to identify the distinctive characteristics of family relations associated with agricultural production have tended to underestimate the dynamic processes which operate between industrial and finance capital and the farm family located at the point of production. Much of this recent research also tends to underplay the role of internal family processes in bringing about changes or assumes rational forms of behaviour aligned to macro-economic forces. This paper explores some of the relationships which exist in the 1980s between the changing political and economic environment associated with agricultural production and the individual responses and adaptations farm families are making with reference to evidence gathered from the county of Dorset, England. Adaptations in three particular areas (farm occupancy, changes in business organisation, and family labour and continuity) are explored, identifying the ways in which strategies allow for the survival of family farm businesses in an increasingly unstable market and political situation.