Multiple succession and land division on family farms in the South East of England: A counterbalance to agricultural concentration?

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Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 335–347 www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud

Multiple succession and land division on family farms in the South East of England: A counterbalance to agricultural concentration? Rob J.F. Burton, Nigel Walford Macaulay Research Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, UK School of Earth Sciences and Geography, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE, UK

Abstract One of the main indicators of industrialisation in agriculture has been the increase in farm sizes as farms are amalgamated to form larger, more economically efficient units. While the processes of farm amalgamation are relatively well understood, the processes by which large farms may be dispersed are less well understood. In particular, while multiple succession is relatively common in other European countries, in the UK the Common Law rule of primogeniture has meant that multiple succession as a means of land dispersal has rarely been considered. This study uses a sample of 154 historically large farms in the South East of England and traces multiple succession over the last 40 years, making observations on possible impacts on average farm size and the social processes by which farms are divided. Almost one-third of the farms were found to have divided through multiple succession between 1960 and 1999. While the farms surveyed in this study were large and thus theoretically more likely to be able to divide, there was no substantial evidence to support farm size as a limiting factor, suggesting that multiple succession as a process may be more widespread than previously thought. This has consequences for our current understanding of the concentration of agriculture in the UK. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Family farming; Multiple succession; Land division; South East England

1. Introduction Much has been written about the increasing farm sizes1 in British agriculture and, in particular, on how this has been associated with a movement towards a more commercial (or even productivist) way of agriculture (Ilbery and Bowler, 1998; Wilson, 2001). Large farm sizes have been associated with everything from overproduction (Marsden et al., 1986) to, via more Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1224 498200.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R.J.F. Burton), [email protected] (N. Walford). 1 NB. In this study references to ‘farm size’ are purely in terms of area of the farm. It is acknowledged that farm area is not an entirely reliable guide to the economic size of the business (e.g. Gasson, 1969; Lund and Price, 1998). However, as Britton and Ingersent (1964) observe, large businesses also tend to have large overall farm areas and, consequently, farm size is often used as a proxy for the size of the farm business (e.g. Ilbery and Bowler, 1993; Bateman and Ray, 1994). 0743-0167/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2005.04.004

intensive agricultural methods, environmental degradation (Gilg, 1991) and, in the UK at least, these types of large commercial farms are sometimes perceived as the antithesis of the idealised small family unit (Burns, 1996). Further, as it is possible to watch the average farm size increase year on year under—at least until recently—an economic climate that has favoured large farms over small farms (Mather, 1992; Pierce, 1993; Ilbery and Bowler, 1998) it is easy to get the idea that increasing farm size is somewhat of an inexorable trend in the development of individual farms. Statistics show that farms in England and Wales have grown from an average size of 32.8 to 59.8 ha 1941–2000, an increase of 82% over the period covered in this study (figures derived from annual Agricultural Census statistics publications). Monitoring changes in average farm size, however, is far from an ideal mechanism for understanding changes

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in the size of individual agricultural holdings in the UK as it does not disclose anything about the processes underlying farm size change. In particular, data sources in the UK such as the June Agricultural Census— probably the most commonly employed data source to investigate farm size change (e.g. Britton, 1977; Lund and Price, 1998)—come with three fundamental problems. First, and most importantly, June Census figures are not released at a sufficiently detailed level to enable researchers to track the development of individual farms, but rather provide an average measure of the holding size for any particular region. As a consequence, conclusions about farm size change are, ultimately, only conclusions about average farm size change and over any period may have little bearing on how individual farms are changing—either in terms of the size of the unit or the fragmentation of the farm. The second problem is that the figures given in the agricultural census are holding size and not total farm size; thus, since several holdings may be run by a single farmer, the number of holdings will be greater than the number of farm businesses and the average size will be smaller (Lund and Price, 1998). Finally, Britton (1950) notes that even where average size is employed on a more general scale to look at farm size changes, the average size of a holding can be misleading as the mean is unduly sensitive to changes at the lower end of the scale— leading researchers such as Lund and Price (1998) to actively seek better ways of measuring the central tendency of farm size statistics. It is perhaps as a result of the lack of appropriate data sources that we have very little understanding of a potentially important aspect of farm structural development, specifically, the mechanisms which act to diminish farm sizes—particularly on the largest of farms. One mechanism for the diminution of farm size is well understood—the economically driven selling of land packages on farms where the farmer may be classified as ‘withdrawing from agriculture’ (e.g. Shucksmith, 1993). However, this is not the only mechanism by which farm size may be reduced nor is it the only category of farmer types that regularly reduce the farm size area. Little has been written about the impacts of multiple succession on the size of individual farms or on the processes that exist within the agricultural industry/ family structure which drive this change. As the economically viable division of farms is theoretically only possible for farms with larger areas, it is a very specific type of farm—large commercial family farms (e.g. the ‘accumulators’ according to Marsden’s et al. (1986) classification of family farms based on economic centrality)—that are most likely to display this type of change. This is of interest as it is exactly this type of large accumulating unit that many people are concerned will come to dominate British agriculture and have detrimental impacts on both the environment and the

landscape leading to the sort of ‘super-productivist’ landscapes suggested by some (Halfacree, 1999). This paper investigates the processes which lead to the division of large farms through succession and speculates on how this may affect the development of British agriculture. It is based on results from a survey of 154 farms in the South East of England (see Walford, 2003 for details) selected randomly from the largest 2% of farms in the counties of East and West Sussex, Surrey and Kent according to the National Farm Survey 1941–1943. While the objective of the study was not the investigation of changes in farm size or family structure, but rather to look at changes that have occurred on large commercial farms over the last 40 years, it nevertheless provides a rare opportunity to investigate with a sample of historically large farms the processes that act to counter increased farm growth in the largest, most progressive category of farmers.

2. The importance of investigating farm size change To avoid being seen as purely a structural analysis it is important to place the study of changing farm size within its theoretical context. There is no escaping the fact that ‘farm size’ per se can be seen simply as a structural feature of a farm and, as such—particularly in an environment where studies of agriculture are increasingly moving towards more qualitative approaches (Morris and Evans, 2004)—changes in farm size may not seem at first glance a critical issue. Concern has been expressed in the past for the fragmentary impact of increasing farm size in the UK (e.g. Jones and Simmons, 1965; Grigg, 1966; Edwards, 1978); however, the economic difficulties that arise from fragmentation (and the increased costs it implies) are of little concern in the context of current UK agriculture. In our efforts to understand agricultural behaviour, farm size must be recognised as simply one of the many components of the decision-making environment of the farm family (e.g. Shucksmith, 1993; Howden and Vanclay, 2000). However, if we are looking to develop a broader understanding of agriculture, changing farm sizes can be an important indicator of change and, in particular, the territorial implications of policy application. Further, while it is not the only feature, farm size acts as a major constraint on land use decision-making (e.g. Ilbery and Bowler, 1998). Therefore, changes in farm size can have implications for farmers’ management approaches and on the uptake of agricultural policy. From a theoretical perspective, there is much to be learnt from a study of farm sizes in terms of understanding how agriculture is becoming more (or less) concentrated, e.g. Burger’s (2001) study of farm concentration in Hungary. During the 1990s, European agriculture was perceived as being largely in a state of

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transition from a ‘productivist’ agricultural regime (‘an intensive, industrially driven and expansionist agriculture with state support based primarily on output and increased productivity’, Lowe et al., 1993, 221pp) to one of ‘post-productivism’ characterised by a greater focus on pluriactivity and agri-environmental policy and a general move away from intensive agriculture. However, from the mid-1990s, criticisms of this conceptualisation began to emerge. In particular, following rejection of the notion of a simple ‘agricultural transition’ from one state to another (e.g. Wilson, 2001; Evans et al., 2002), the vision of a uniformly post-productivist countryside was broadly rejected and replaced with that of an increasingly differentiated countryside (e.g. Ilbery and Bowler, 1998; Potter, 1998; Wilson, 2001), with areas of high agricultural value seeing a possible intensification to compete at the market level, and areas of low agricultural value (often in the uplands) increasingly accessing second pillar measures (such as agri-environmental schemes) to ensure farm survival. It has been hypothesised that this co-existence of different production types will lead to a high degree of variation between regions in both agricultural production systems and landscape activities depending on the local constraints on agricultural potential (Kristensen et al., 2001). Within this notion of a differentiated countryside, farm size is likely to be both an important indicator of the degree of change and, at the same time, have strong implications for the adoption of agri-environmental policies in areas of what may be termed ‘postproductivist’ countryside. Of particular relevance is that, in addition to notions of intensification and specialisation, the theoretical productivist landscape development incorporates notions of increasing scale of agricultural activities (e.g. Whatmore et al., 1987; Bowler et al., 1996; Ilbery and Bowler, 1998; Wilson, 2001). The investigation of changing farm sizes may thus help to identify areas where agricultural concentration is in progress or, alternatively, where theoretically ‘postproductivist’ landscapes are developing and concentration of agriculture is not occurring. Further, it may aid in exploring the processes involved in the polarisation of farm sizes (Potter and Lobley, 1992; Ilbery and Bowler, 1998) and the creation of the ‘disappearing middle’ (Buttel and Gillespie, 1984, p. 185)—the development of a dichotomy of large-scale corporate farms and relatively small-scale family farms or lifestyle units—and explaining the bearing this may have on the territorialisation of agriculture. The second important aspect of studying farm size— again related to the territorial development of agriculture—is its value in the investigation of the uptake of the second pillar measures of the CAP. In particular, it is well recognised that farm size is a critical feature in enabling farmers to participate in voluntary agrienvironmental schemes (e.g. Morris and Potter, 1995;

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Battershill and Gilg, 1997; Wilson, 1997; Wilson and Hart, 2000; McNally, 2002), allowing farmers to enter larger areas of land into such schemes (Potter et al., 1991) and allowing farmers to engage in forestry on the farm (Scambler, 1989; Gasson and Hill, 1990; Williams et al., 1994; Crabtree et al., 1998). These factors are directly related to the advantages of a greater available land area with farmers able to benefit from lower fixed costs (Ilbery and Bowler, 1998; Flaten, 2002), having received higher levels of tax relief in the past (Whatmore et al., 1987), having greater economic stability, receiving higher income from the larger area entered and, through a larger farm size, having a greater likelihood of possessing rough areas suitable for conservation purposes (e.g. Morris and Young, 1997; Falconer, 2000; Wilson and Hart, 2000). A further objective of the CAP reforms—the diversification of farming away from reliance on agricultural production—is also influenced by farm size in that, through the demands it places on the farmer/farmfamily, farm size influences the likelihood the farmer will have off-farm employment. In this case, according to Gasson et al. (1988), off-farm employment decreases rapidly with increasing farm size and then tends to increase again once the very largest farms are reached. Ilbery et al. (1996) concluded similarly that off-farm businesses concentrated on the very smallest (o40 ha) and very largest (4400 ha) farms but, in this instance, they observed that on-farm diversification was more likely on the middle range farm size (120–200 ha). Relationships between farm size and diversification have also been found for farms in Central Europe, reinforcing the notion that the relationship is structural rather than cultural (Chaplina et al., 2004). For understanding the development of pluriactivity in the countryside, therefore, farm size may again act as an important indicator of change.

3. Farm size change—investigating multiple succession In the study of agricultural change, there is a perception that the process of intensification involves a general, almost inexorable, increase in the land area of the largest farms as larger farms have production and economic advantages over their smaller competitors. With this in mind, it is possible to imagine that the trend of agricultural expansion on individual farms is unidirectional. This perception of continually increasing farm size is facilitated by the lack of information concerning land area changes on individual farms, with the majority of studies (mostly conducted as an economic analysis) employing average farm size statistics to describe changes in farm area (Britton, 1977; Lund and Price, 1998). As observed earlier, perhaps the most easily accessible source of information on farm size

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in the UK is the June Agricultural Census. This was set up in the 1860s and provides information on farm size changes at spatial scales ranging from the parish to the national level. However, this source of information suffers from problems of tracking individual farm changes, the reporting of holding rather than farm sizes and, where data are given in averages, sensitivity of the mean to fluctuations at the lower end of the scale that make it difficult to understand the dynamics of farm size change. Another highly accurate source of land ownership/ management data can be found in the IACS returns which provide medium-scale boundary information for all land registered under the Common Agricultural Policy and are updated on an annual basis. However, there are also problems with this source as, since it only applies to registered holdings, large areas of land such as woodland and other non-agricultural areas may be left out of the analysis. Further, the high level of detail provided in the IACS returns makes it difficult to use without breaching confidentiality. Sang et al. (2005, pp. 182–183) state from interviews with farm-level IACS data managers in Scotland that farm-level IACS data ‘could not be used for integration with third party data, especially if that allows any extrapolation of data about any individual farmer.’ As a consequence of the sensitivity of these issues, and the fear that reduction of confidentiality may damage the level or reliability of returns, farm-level IACS data are not released in any form. 3.1. The ‘commercial farmers’ in the South East England study To investigate multiple succession requires a sample of farms where the development of individual farms can be traced and which have been subject (since that point) to the presence of two or three generations of potential succession enabling possible farm divisions to occur. This paper utilises the results of a survey undertaken in the South East of England (Kent, Surrey, and East and West Sussex) in the winter of 1998/99 where, rather than being based on a random or even stratified random sample of farmers, the farmers were selected on the basis of having historically a large farm size. Using the 1941/ 43 National Farm Survey (see Short and Watkins, 1999) farms within the largest 2% of farms were selected. Where multiple holdings occurred the holding areas were combined to give whole-farm rather than holding size. In order to ensure owner continuity, of these original 352 farms, farms were selected on the basis that the current name of the farm and the name of the farmer (identified using a combination of the BT telephone directory and the on-line yellow pages) matched the 1941–43 record—leaving a total of 244 farms eligible for inclusion in the survey. Of these 244 farms 154 farmers

were successfully interviewed, giving a response rate of 63% (see Walford, 2003, for further details on the selection and interviewing of the sample). While this process will identify many of the farms where multiple succession may have taken place, it should be noted that some farms originally in the top 2% of farms in 1941 will not have been included in the survey. There are a number of possible mechanisms for this. First, where the farm and farmer name are not registered in an accessible telephone directory, farms may have been excluded from selection. Since commercial farms are more likely to be listed in the Yellow Pages (Burton and Wilson, 1999), however, this is unlikely to pose a major problem. Second, if the farm were passed to a daughter rather than son, the name of the farmer could again have changed and the farm excluded. Third, in the process of accumulating land, the farmer may move to a new farm and rent out the old farm buildings so that the farmer and farm name do not match (even though the same land is being farmed). Finally, where the farm has divided through succession and the original farm ceased operation in the 60 year period, the farmer name is likely to have changed despite the fact that half the farm is still in operation. In general, however, with the exception of the possibility of selection through telephone listings (see Burton and Wilson, 1999 for a discussion on the possible biases of this approach) these occurrences are assumed to operate randomly and thus are unlikely to significantly alter the results of the survey. Information on farm size changes and multiple succession details were gathered through a process of reflexive questioning—stretching back four decades from 1999 to 1960. While this approach has been usefully employed in the past (e.g. Marsden et al., 1989), a number of caveats need to be considered. First, in order to construct a continuous time frame for survey farms, farms where the land managers were not aware of historical changes to farm size or successional details had to be excluded from the survey. This left 132 farms (mostly family farms2) eligible for inclusion in the analysis.3 Second, as recent exposure will make an event 2 Because the selection criteria required that (a) both the name of the farm and the name of the farm family matched for both 1941–1943 and 1998 and (b) where the farm manager was interviewed (as the most knowledgeable person to respond to questions concerning the farm) responses were not included in this part of the analysis, it is clearly possible to make the claim that these farms represent true ‘family farms’ in the sense that they fulfil the criteria of being passed through the generations to those related through kinship, and that they maintain a strong association between the household and the business (e.g. Hutson, 1987). 3 Family farms in the survey were significantly smaller than nonfamily managed farms (family farms 465 ha, non-family managed farms, 81 ha, Po:001); thus, calculations of farm size change over the 40 year period leave out (by necessity) some of the largest commercial farms. The behaviour of these farms is an area requiring further study.

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more readily obtainable from memory (Moser and Kalton, 1971; Miller, 1985), the reliability of the data is likely to be inversely related to the time since the event occurred. Therefore, data on farm size changes gathered for the 1960s and early 1970s is likely to be less reliable than data referring to the 1980s and 1990s. On the other hand, respondents are more likely to recall events of high significance (Moser and Kalton, 1971)—and the purchasing, dividing, or selling of farm land is likely to be significant from a financial, social and managerial perspective. It should also be remembered that people are often selective about which memories they retrieve and, in particular, are more likely to select memories that support their self-identity (Gergen, 1971; McCall, 1987). As farm size is commonly seen as a status symbol within agriculture and is connected with social class (Bell and Newby, 1974; Wilson, 1988), this may lead to farmers overemphasising the increases in farm size and/ or underemphasising any farm size decrease to support their self-image. In addition to data on farm size changes, qualitative information was gathered about the nature of the successional process itself outlining, for example, the situation under which multiple succession or farm division took place. This provided information for an analysis of the nature of the multiple succession process on a farm-by-farm basis. Consequently, the following section is split into two parts—the first explores the processes of multiple succession, and the second looks at evidence relating to changes in farm size on the large farms themselves and, specifically, the impact of multiple succession on farm size.

4. The processes of multiple succession The processes of succession are relatively well known, having been the focus of a number of studies based around the farm family household in the late 1980s–1990s (e.g. Hutson, 1987; Keating and Munro, 1989; Weigel and Weigel, 1990; Potter and Lobley, 1992, 1996; Fasterding, 1995; Taylor et al., 1998). These studies suggest that succession is linked to the life-cycle of the farm family with the farm going through a number of stages. According to Hutson (1987), the successional process can be divided into four phases: the initial stage where the child leaves full-time education and begins to work under the parent’s supervision, the second phase when parent and child/children decide to ‘make a go of it’ and expand and intensify production, the third phase with the implementation of new schemes or methods for which the child/children are delegated responsibility within the family business, and the fourth phase when the incumbent farmer retires and the management of the farm is fully transferred to the succeeding generation. Succession thus acts as a

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motivation to build up the assets of the farm as the farmer has a ‘generational stake’ in developing the business both in terms of the intensity of agriculture and the likelihood of expansion of the farm business (Potter and Lobley, 1992).4 The question is, how, if at all, does multiple succession differ from standard succession? Little mention has been made in the literature of the processes of multiple succession and, in particular, how this relates to the cycle of farm development and the overall development of agricultural regions. While it is unlikely that the succession cycle outlined by Hutson (1987) is greatly different in cases of multiple succession, the possibility of multiple succession does put additional pressure on the farm. In particular, if—as is suggested in the literature—overall farm size is an important consideration for the potential of succession on farms (Gasson et al., 1988), then it follows that the larger the farm the greater the chance for multiple succession where more than one heir wishes to continue in the family tradition. This receives some support in that Shawyer (1990) found that farms with more than one member of the next generation on the farm were larger and expanding more rapidly than farms with only one member of the next generation. Results from the survey suggest that amongst the survey farms, multiple succession has played an important role in determining the size of the current farm units. Of the 131 farms in the survey where complete records for the period were available, almost a third (32%) had divided the farm over the previous 40 years. Fig. 1 shows the types of farm splits that have occurred. Included in this table (although not in the percentage figure given above) are farm divisions where the farmer is forced to sell off land to buy other siblings out of the farm since, while this does not count as multiple succession on a land basis, it is in essence a transfer of land to a sibling (as capital). One interesting feature of the table is the division of ‘retirement farms’ for the elderly father—a move presumably undertaken to reduce levels of family stress caused by older farmers’ lack of willingness to relinquish overall control of the farm (Weigel and Weigel, 1990). 4

While in this paper we refer to the transferral of land (and assets where land has to be converted to capital to provide for inheritance) from one generation to the next as ‘succession’, it is clearly not always possible to distinguish between succession and inheritance. Fennell (1981, p. 20) suggests that generally the terms inheritance and succession are used interchangeably but that there is a good case for treating them differently, where inheritance refers to a transfer of business assets and succession the handing over of management control. What we are concerned about is, strictly speaking, transfer of land as inheritance rather than transfer of managerial control. However, as the motivation for farm division in most cases (except for the two retirement farms) was the succession of at least one of the siblings we believe that most of the divisions were driven by successional rather than inheritance concerns.

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Fig. 2 is based on the interview discussions with large farmers concerning the different processes involved in farm division and potential development paths that may occur (see the above examples of farm multiplesuccession/division). It shows that division is on the basis of four main types: 1. succession with a non-farming sibling who is provided with land; 2. division to provide a retirement farm for father; 3. splitting farm for management/economic advantages (such as to take advantage of subsidy regime); 4. division to provide separate farms for more than one sibling. Division can also be classified into two main groups in terms of the events leading up to the decision to divide, namely, planned division—where farmers develop the structure of the farm in a manner that facilitates the later division of the land—and conflict division—a much more spontaneous process whereby family conflicts lead

to the division of the business and, by necessity, the land as well. Within this broader framework, three main development pathways appear to be followed. First, the splitting off of land for a non-farming sibling does not necessarily mean that the land is permanently lost from the original farm. Rental arrangements are relatively common, and when the land is sold by the non-farming successor it can be sold directly back to the original farmer— essentially a simple transfer of capital from the farm business to the non-farming sibling. However, if the farming successor does not have the capital within the farm business to pay off the sibling, the land may be sold and thereby lost from the farm. Second, the farm may be split on a ‘temporary’ basis with the intention of later reintegration. The two main reasons for the creation of what is essentially a devolved management structure are the provision of a retiring farmer with a ‘retirement farm’ and division of the farm for economic reasons such as to ensure eligibility for specific subsidy schemes.

Type of farm division

no. farms

No division Farm split into 2 separate units Farm split into 2 units but farmed collectively or rented from siblings Farm split into 3 units Retirement farm split off for father Land sold to buy out siblings at point of succession

88 31 4 4 2 2

Total

131

Fig. 1. Frequency of multiple succession between 1960 and 1999 by succession type.

Large farm size

Planned division

Division for succession with non-farming sibling

Land sold

Land lost from farm

Conflict division

Division to provide retirement farm

Forces for change • Economic stress • Management advantages • intrafamilial conflict • Successional pressures

Division for management/ economic advantages

Land rented back to farm?

“going it alone”

Failure? Bought back?

Division for succession with farming sibling

Success?

Eventual reintegration? Farm size expansion?

Fig. 2. Flow diagram summarising processes of farm size change associated with farm division and re-integration.

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The third pathway is for both farms to go it alone, either the result of intrafamilial conflict or a more amicable planned division of the farm. In cases where the outcome of the farm division is successful, the expansion rates of the two new farms can be substantial. For example, survey farm 76 was divided in 1990 with one brother taking 365 ha of owned land. Over the next 10 years the farmer added an additional 400 ha of rented land, more than doubling the farm size. At the same time the original home farm expanded, adding another 200 ha. Thus, the division of large farms may be seen as part of a process of renewal— rather than necessarily a weakening of market position. Researchers such as Potter and Lobley (1992) have noted that on succession farm development tends to progress faster and, at the same time, the presence of an older farmer can stifle farm development through failure to adopt more innovative approaches to farming. The splitting of farms in this manner can thus provide the impetus for innovative development on the farm—thus ultimately acting as a catalyst for change in the countryside. The ability of large commercial units to bounce back in this way may be due to their commanding position in the marketplace (and the cultural capital contained in the reputation of the farm/family name) or, alternatively, the result of a long and carefully prepared transfer strategy that places successors in a good position for expansion once the land transfer has been made. There is evidence that farmers prepare the division of the farm long in advance of retirement. For example, farmer 177 managing a very large farm of over 1500 ha observed: We may have to split up the farm if the children want it to happen yWe are planning for it, it was a major topic of conversation last year between T [The managing partner and ‘‘driving force’’] and Mr D [farm owner]—how to change the farm without changing the overall farm structure. In four other cases, the farm structure was built up with the specific intention of enabling multiple succession. For example, I bought another farm [over 200 hectares in 1998] to ensure that one day if children want to split the farm they will be able to do so easily. (farmer 85) The farm has been divided into half already. When I retire, the children will have half each which can join onto their current farms. (farmer 200) As the farm was being developed, father had the idea that we ought to be left a similar amount, thus each of us was given land as it was purchased. (farmer 88) That the pressure to build up the farm for multiple succession can lead to farmers over-stretching themselves can be seen in that not all attempts are successful.

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For example, farmer 377 purchased 100 ha in the late 1980s in order to be able to split the farm between his sons, a strategy which failed as he was forced to sell most of it again in the early 1990s as a result of crippling interest payments and poor farm returns. While planned succession can result in invigorated development of the farm, succession without planning for the maintenance of the farm can result in its rapid diminishment. For example, farm 5 was a major unit in the 1980s, reaching a peak size of 450 ha. In the late 1980s, however, the farm was split three ways between three brothers—each obtaining between 120 and 170 ha—although the farm was still being managed as a single family unit. Two of the brothers then passed on their share of the farm to their respective sons while the third died and left his 1/3 of the farm to charity. The need to raise £1.5 million to purchase his share of the land resulted in a substantial restructuring of the farm including some sale of land and the division of the business into two entirely separate units. Within the last 3 years, the current farmer has had to additionally buy out his own brother and sister and with the land sales required for this, is now left with a 166 ha farm. In another example, farm 50 in Kent consisted of over 600 ha in the early 1950s. The process of farm dispersal begin in 1953 with the loss of 182 ha and again in 1962 with 121 ha—in both cases through the uncles of the current farmer choosing to leave and take money out of the business. In 1987, two sisters also left the business and a further 350 ha of land was sold, leaving the current farmer with an orchard of just over 50 ha. One important cause of unprepared division of large farming units is stress between family members which can have quite prolonged consequences because of the upheaval it can cause on the parent farm. An example of forced multiple succession can be found in farm 56 which was split in 1975 following the two brothers ‘wanting different things’. The existing farmer notes that—even though the farms have both now passed to the next generation—there is still animosity between the families some 25 years later. In other examples, farmer 14 notes that major restructuring of the farm in the mid1980s was as a result of a fight between siblings at the time of succession, farm 319 was split in 1994 (for the second time in the 40 year period) because the current farmer’s ‘cousins didn’t get on’, and farmer 396 notes that the division of the family farm was the result of ‘a massive family argument in the late 1960s’. While there were other examples of division caused by stress, the issue of family conflict and its implications for farm structure is difficult to research owing to the sensitivity of the issue. In many cases, however, comments were made about siblings ‘going his own way’ (farmer 8), ‘wanting out’ (farmer 76) or ‘pulling out’ (farmer 182) in a manner that suggests division of the business was not a mutually planned process. One farmer acknowledged

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that the management set-up of the farm was the factor enabling all siblings to work collectively on the farm—in particular to reduce friction between the spouses and other family members (a common area of conflict in farm families—Martoz-Baden and Mattheis, 1994). He observes: For the survival of the family as one unit it has been important for us to have our own space. It’s lucky that we all have our own areas y particularly for marriage. As Fig. 2 suggests, not all divisions of the farm are true divisions nor are they intended to be permanent. One important role of farm division can be to reduce the friction between the existing farmer and the successor, thus smoothing the transition of control at a time when the family is likely to be under considerable stress. Two farms were divided between son and father to enable the father to have a ‘retirement farm’ and thus minimise the conflict between father and son. For example, in the case of farm 175, the farm has been divided into two units— one containing the pigs and strawberries as a retirement farm for the father, while the other arable farm is maintained by the son. In the other case, farm 119 was divided into separate parts on a more or less even basis, enabling the retiring farmer to concentrate on rearing livestock for his son’s business. Other motivations for farm division include the maximisation of subsidy returns. For example, farmer 178 observes that the farm was split between the generations in 1992 into a dairy unit and a suckler cow unit and run as entirely separate businesses as ‘If you produce milk you can’t get suckler cow subsidies’. In these cases farm division as purely a business arrangement may result in the amalgamation of the unit again in the future—in particular when the ‘retiring’ farmer fully withdraws from agricultural production. An important observation derived both from Fig. 2 and the analysis of farm case studies is that the process of multiple succession is not driven by a single factor but rather that there are a number of different types of multiple succession mostly defined by the situation under which succession has occurred—whether for reasons of family conflict, as part of a planned division strategy, as a means of maximising subsidy benefits of farm division, or as a means of reducing intergenerational conflict during the succession process. Further, the division of the farm does not mean that the farm is likely to decrease its position within the farming community. Depending on the reasons for division and the economic/structural position of the farm, farm division can be a catalyst for rapid farm growth and business expansion—sometimes even repurchasing off siblings land that has been divided off the farm previously to reconstruct the unit.

5. The impact of multiple succession on farm size: a discussion As noted above, the effects of multiple succession can be hidden within statistics based on average farm size as it is impossible to ascertain what is happening in the growth cycles on individual farms. The question therefore still remains to be answered: what impact does multiple succession have on the average growth of farms in this part of the UK? Fig. 3 is a graph showing (a) the actual average size of farms involved in the survey and (b) the predicted average farm size of the sample without multiple succession. The adjusted figure must be regarded with caution as it does not account for other factors such as the impetus that division may provide for farm growth on the new farm, transferral of land to non-agricultural purposes or the growth spurred by the need for multiple succession. However, it does provide an approximation of how farm sizes might have increased in large commercial family farms in the South East of England were multiple succession not occurring. The graph suggests that while the growth of average farm size shows a similar pattern overall, multiple succession/farm division may have reduced the average size of the large commercial farms by around 12% between 1960 and 1999 (current farm size average 494 ha, projected farm size 561 ha). Official figures from the June Census would show an even greater difference as the division of the farms in most cases creates a new, smaller, farm that would be added to the statistics and further reduce the average farm size. When this figure is calculated for the survey farms (with new farm growth adjusted by increasing farm size by average area change for the survey farms over the year), average farm size for government statistics would show an increase of 22% over the last 40 years (projected average farm size with division 433 ha, projected farm size with no division

580

Average farm size

560

Average farm size if no multiple succession

540 Farm size (ha)

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520 500 480 460 440 420 1960

1970

1980 Year

1990

2000

Fig. 3. Influence of multiple succession on large commercial farms: average farm size and estimated average farm size without multiple succession.

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5

One referee suggested this claim could not be made without ascertaining whether these were commercial farms or retirement farms/ hobby farms for siblings. While data were unfortunately not collected on the nature of the farms split off as this was not a major concern for the overall objective of the research project there was no mention of the splits as ‘hobby farms’, most divisions were on more a less even basis (accounting for buildings and land), and only on 2 occasions were the splits recorded as retirement farms. More work following both/all farms involved in the succession would, however, admittedly be useful here.

quickly in an attempt to become financially viable. In a later example, farmer 319 (a very progressive young farmer) split the farm between himself and his cousin in 1994, with his cousin receiving 73 ha and himself 40 ha on the basis of a solicitors valuation. Within 5 years he had successfully built the farm up to 218 ha largely through contracting. Thus, while multiple succession on farms of a small size is clearly a risky strategy (both of these examples were conflict-based multiple succession), it appears as if it is more than simply the largest commercial units that are capable of successfully dividing. Over the four decades under investigation the frequency of multiple succession events on the study farms has varied. Fig. 4 illustrates that the number of multiple successions showed a steady increase to a peak of 12 in the 1980s after which there was a fairly rapid decline to only three in the 1990s. In the light of the above findings on the processes of multiple succession, it is possible to offer possible explanations for this event. In particular, it has been noted that one of the principal causes of multiple succession is stress within the farm family and resulting friction between family members. The peak of multiple successions among the study farms in the 1980s may be a reflection of macroscale adjustments to the agricultural industry that were occurring at the time—in particular, the occurrence of the so-called ‘farm’ or ‘agricultural crisis’ (Schroeder et al., 1985; Lawrence, 1987; Goodman and Redclift, 1989), described by Marsden et al. (1989) as an ‘unstable phase’ in British agriculture. It has been noted by researchers that this period of restructuring in the 1980s has led to greater dissonance between states, policymakers and farmers (Marsden et al., 1992); however, under these conditions, it seems likely that greater dissonance was also occurring within farm families themselves, particularly amongst larger commercial farmers who were more attuned to responding to global market conditions. Evidence to support this notion can be found in studies suggesting that during this period No. of farms with multiple succession

561 ha) were multiple succession not reducing the size of farms at the top end. An important question here is whether this impact is likely to affect only the top proportion of farms or whether multiple succession is likely to be more widespread amongst the farming community. While one of the main reasons for using this survey sample was the increased likelihood of multiple succession amongst large units, it does not appear that farm size is the sole factor contributing to the division of the farm. In fact, from 1985 to 1999, the farms created through multiple succession ranged in size from 28 to 404 ha (mean150 ha)—well below the average farm size for the sample of commercial farms (469–494 ha), but still well above the average holding size for the region of 53 ha total area in 1998 (MAFF, 2000). This suggests that, while farmers planning for multiple succession generally strive to increase farm size in preparation, farms can divide at almost any size providing the units are commercially viable.5 What appears to be important in determining division does not appear to be farm size but rather the structure of the family business, the attitudes of the farm family, social aspects of the family unit such as the extent to which family members can work together as a unit and the extent to which multiple succession is foreseen and planned for. One argument that may be put against multiple succession occurring on very small farms is that, while the size of the farm on an area basis may be small, farm area is not necessarily a good indicator of the economic size of the business (e.g. Gasson, 1969; Lund and Price, 1998) and a viable unit may thus be small, but intensively farmed (e.g. organic herbs) or contain substantial non-land-related resources. Thus, it may be a small farm in name only. However, there are two factors that suggest this may not be the case. First, in the literature, it is noted that in general there is a close relationship between farm area and farm business size (Britton and Ingersent, 1964) and, consequently, farm size is often used as a proxy for business size (e.g. Ilbery and Bowler, 1993; Bateman and Ray, 1994). Second, evidence emerged from the interviews that the farm business size was not a critical consideration for farmers when dividing the business. For example, in 1985, farm 32 was split into two farms of 28 ha each, one of which subsequently failed when the brother expanded too

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12 10 8 6 4 2 0 1960

1970

1980

1990

Decade Fig. 4. Farms dividing into separate business units by decade.

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farm families were placed under extreme stress (Lawrence, 1987; Meyer and Lobao, 1997). The low number of multiple successions in the 1990s may reflect the combination of a recovery in agricultural prices and the introduction of the MacSharry reforms—both of which contributed to introducing a more stable and certain environment for agriculture in the UK. The impact of this reduction in multiple successions can be seen in Fig. 3 as a considerable increase in the rate of farm size growth from the previous decade where growth in average farm size appeared to be levelling out. Another possible interpretation for the decrease in the number of multiple successions in the 1990s is a cohort effect among the farmers in the survey. In particular, the post-war baby boom generation would be reaching their 30s in the 1980s whilst their parents would be reaching retirement age; thus, it is possible that the number of multiple successions peaked in the 1980s simply due to demographics. Two factors, however, make this scenario unlikely. First, the impact of any post-war baby boom on farms in the area will have been influenced by farming’s position as a reserved occupation during the war, rendering it doubtful that a strong cohort effect was operating on multiple succession patterns during the 1980s. Second, evidence from the survey suggests there were similar rates of succession in the 1960s (2.7 farmers per year took over management of the farm in this decade), 1970s (3.2) and 1980s (3.2). While the figure declined slightly in the 1990s (2.3), there does not appear to be any evidence supporting a strong demographic influence over farm multiple succession.

6. Multiple succession and the future of agriculture in the UK This study has focused on the processes and impacts of multiple succession on agriculture in the UK, employing a sample of commercial farms that were large in the past in order to increase the likelihood that farms in the sample have divided. One of the most interesting findings of this study, however, has undermined the basis on which this selection was made: namely that while larger farms are more prone to division farm size does not appear to be the critical factor enabling farm division as farms of as little as 70 ha have divided through multiple succession. That this has not been observed in the literature is puzzling. It may be partly attributable to the common use of average statistics to investigate farm size changes—thus obscuring processes that lead to the diminishment of farm size. Alternatively, it may be that researchers have simply not looked for multiple succession effects in the UK. As DeHaan (1993) and van der Veen et al. (2002) observe, farm succession in Britain (when looked at from the basis of inheritance law) is generally transferred to a

single successor under the Common Law rule of primogeniture (see Gasson and Errington, 1993), unlike in countries such as Spain where true ‘multiple-succession’ has created serious problems with land fragmentation. In other areas, work looking at the implications of succession on environmental participation has focused on the so-called ‘new blood effect’ (Potter and Lobley, 1996) with younger farmers taking a more dynamic approach to the commercial development of their farms and older farmers without successors withdrawing from agriculture or extensifying production—and, in general, interest appears to have focused on family cycles and its influence on the development of the farm (e.g. Potter and Lobley, 1992). Multiple succession with farm division takes a more indirect route to influencing farmers’ behaviour but may be equally as critical. While the literature demonstrates a strong relationship between farm size and participation in voluntary agri-environmental schemes, this is not the only way in which farm size can influence the development of the farm. As a result of the intertwining of the business with the home, size of farm may exert a strong influence on social aspects within the farm—in particular the role of the farm wife in the business (Sawer, 1973; Bokemeier and Garkovitch, 1987). Further, Gasson et al. (1988) suggest that family influence is more significant on larger farms—presumably again because of the more complex social organisation required to maintain both the family as a business and the family as a social unit. Thus, any process that has the effect of reducing farm size such as multiple succession also has an influence on not just the structure of the farm, but also the physical environment, participation in government schemes, and even the social construction/working of the farm family itself. From the current study, it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions about multiple succession in the UK because of the geographically limited spread of the sample and the lack of a sample of smaller farms from which to generalise. However, a number of possibilities can be suggested. First, multiple succession appears to play an important role in reducing the maximum sizes of the largest commercial family farms as part of a cycle of growth and division. This cycle has, in the past, been largely obscured through the analysis of farm sizes using ‘average’ statistics. As farms do not have to be particularly large to divide, it may be suggested that this process is more widespread and therefore more important than previously envisaged. Second, multiple succession can take two main forms—forced multiple succession as a result of conflict within the farm family, and planned multiple succession where the managing farmer constructs the farm with the intention of enabling more than one son to become independent farmers. In reality, these processes are mixed as some farmers prepare for multiple succession as a precau-

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tionary measure. In addition, there are temporary successional forms to enable the maximisation of subsidy returns or a reduction in family stress through the creation of a retirement farm. These processes are often complicated by the need to buy other non-farming siblings out from the business. Third, it is suggested that one of the main causes of forced multiple succession is stress within the farm family. Therefore, as uncertainty in the agricultural industry increases the stress levels on farm families, the likelihood of multiple succession increases—which may have a considerable impact on the restructuring of the industry and implications for policy formulation. In particular, it suggests that uncertainty in the industry generated by an unstable political environment (speculation on future policy measures such as the future of the CAP) could inadvertently lead to higher levels of farm division. What do these results tell us about the polarisation of agriculture and Buttel and Gillespie’s (1984) ‘disappearing middle’ thesis? Polarisation may be occurring but, in terms of the individual farms, the ‘middle’ is continually being repopulated with farms that divide out of the large farms category (as well as presumably smaller farms coming into this size range). While Robinson and Ilbery (1993) speculate that the 1992 revisions to the CAP may have created a reversal in the polarisation of agriculture as farmers are encouraged to disperse their businesses into smaller units, the results of this study suggest that measures such as the MacSharry reforms—or any government policy that introduces stability to the system—simply serve to increase the certainty in farming and therefore decrease the likelihood of land division through multiple succession. Further, Evans et al. (2002) observe that there is little in the Agenda 2000 reforms to discourage the continued enlargement of farm holdings. This study would support this contention in that, similar to the MacSharry reforms, the introduction of direct farm payments is likely to influence the concentration of agriculture by having a stabilising effect and therefore contributing to the increasing polarisation of agriculture. On the other hand, this conclusion is drawn from our understanding of farmer responses under a stable ‘productivist’ agricultural regime. An extended period of stability under a ‘multi-functional’ agricultural policy regime may produce a radically different result.

7. Conclusion While this study has provided some insights into the nature and impact of multiple succession, there is still clearly a need for more comprehensive work to fully understand the processes involved and the extent to which multiple succession influences farm structure and the concentration of agriculture. This can be divided into two main areas. First, as the study was conducted

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entirely in the South East of England, the extent to which multiple succession is common across farms of all sizes and types (e.g. upland, lowland) needs to be explored. One way of approaching this may be through the Farm Accounts Survey (Scotland) (FAS) or Farm Business Survey (England) (FBS) which use a panel survey approach to follow individual farms and where data are more readily made available on the basis of individual farms (e.g. Roberts et al., 2002). While this would overcome the problem of using averaged statistics, there is one major problem in that farms are only permitted to remain in the survey for a maximum of 15 years (McNally, 2001), thus preventing the tracking of change on individual farms over extended time frames. A further issue is that it would be beneficial to investigate the division and development of both units rather than simply the home farm, an approach not possible were the FAS or FBS to be used. Nevertheless, studying multiple succession over a 15 year time-span on a selection of farms may be sufficient to gain more of an understanding about the nature of multiple succession and, in particular, the structural aspects of farms that contribute to the likelihood of multiple succession. The second main area that needs investigation is on family dynamics and response to stress which may provide insights into what triggers forced multiple successions on farms. As noted above, factors influencing land division are likely to be centred around the structure of the family business, social aspects of the family unit such as the extent to which family members can work together as a unit and the extent to which multiple succession is foreseen and planned for. To understand multiple succession therefore requires the use of more in-depth approaches to learn more about the dynamics of the family farm unit. In particular, if, as hypothesised here, stress plays a major role in determining multiple succession, studies linking farm structure/ management with the dynamics of the farm family itself (i.e. investigating the interaction of work roles and family roles) could significantly aid our understanding of events that are likely to trigger multiple succession amongst family farms. For farms considering division, an interesting area of investigation would be the link between intergenerational management of the farm and beliefs about inheritance, in particular—how are contributions of individual family members to what is a cooperative family unit considered when division of resources is concerned? Given the current productivist/post-productivist/multi-functional agricultural regime debates and the role of the concentration of agriculture as a key indicator of productivism and, at the same time, land dispersal as a supposed sign of ‘post-productivism’, understanding this mechanism by which farms may become dispersed and the mechanisms that drive it may be important for understanding macro-scale agricultural changes. The

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critical factor is to see farm size as more than simply a structural feature of agriculture, as in early studies of farm size changes, but rather as an indicator of other more relevant and important trends in the industry.

Acknowledgements The for this paper was conducted under the project entitled Agricultural Policy Adjustment: Responses by Large Scale Farm Businesses, which received the support of the ESRC (Ref. R000222512). We would further like to thank all of the farmers who participated in this research and three anonymous referees for their very helpful comments.

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