Shifting values in agriculture: the farm family and pollution regulation1

kmrn~il of Rum1 Studies, Vol. IQ, No, 2, pp. 173-184.

1994

Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain 07450167/94 $7.00 + 0.00

Pergamon

Shifting Values in Agriculture: the Farm Family and Pollution Regulation’ Neil Ward and Philip Lowe Centre for Rural Economy, Department of Agricuhural Economics and Food Marketing, University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RW, U.K.

Abstract - It has iong been ack~#~Iedged that the notion of family continuity of farm occupation through succession is one of the central tenets of the ethos of ‘family’ farming, but recent evidence suggests that it is being called into question by family members. Farming practices are being pursued in a rapidly changing world, an important feature of which is a greater level of public and political concern for protecting the rural environment. This paper examines a range of new influences affecting farming practice and environmental consciousness and the im~~i~atjons these have for farming values, part~~uIar~y that of family succession. Using evidence from a study of dairy farm families and pollution regulation in Devon in South West England, it suggests that rural social change is providing new routes through which environmental values can flow through farm households, influencing the ways farmers understand the environmental implications of their practices, and the ways they and their families think about their long-term futures.

Introduction

expansion and accumulation. It is this suggestion, for example, that has inspired research by Potter and Lobley (1992a-c) to examine whether elderly farmers without successors are more amenable to extensification schemes. However, despite the obvious importance of the medium- and long-term aspirations of farmers and their children, the relationship between farm families and farm busineme.s remains under-researched (but see Gasson and Errington, 1993). As FenneIl (1981) argued, our understanding of the processes of inter-generational transfer creates problems in a number of policy areas, including production and pricing policy, land use policy and structural change in agriculture,

Almost all farm businesses in Britain can be described as family farms in the sense that the principals of the business are related by kinship or marriage, and business ownership is combined with managerial control (Gasson et al., 1988). It is also widely accepted that a central tenet in the ethos of farming is family continuity of farm occupation through succession (Hutson, 1987; Symes, 1990). Once it is agreed that any younger member of a farm famiIy should take over the business from their parents, or even at an earlier stage when choices have been made about marriage or procreation, succession typically emerges as a framing principle around which medium- and long-term planning of the business takes place. As Symes points out, a commitment to family succession “can imbue a sense of confidence and security and thus help to preserve harmony within the household” (1990, p. 280). But more than this, it has been argued that a commitment to succession can mean that farm businesses are managed according to distinctive sets of aspirations which have tended to foster intensification,

Within agr~~uItura1 economics, the discipline traditionafty most concerned with change on farms, the starting point for analysis of the farm as a family business has been the neo-classical model of perfect competition, which implies that decisions are taken by a single entrepreneur with the objective of profit maximizations Critics of this assumption argue that managers of firms seek to maximize utifiry and that a variety of goals including power, control, prestige and the desire for ‘the quiet life’ may be included in their utility functions. Profit maximization may not be the predominant objective at all. Gasson (1973$, for example, suggests that the high value placed on independence and intrinsic work satisfaction are often more important than income maximization” It

~~~-..I-_ .^_“_ “I___ ‘A draft of this paper was presented in the ‘Future of the Family Farm’ Workshop at the XVth European Congress of Rural Sociology, Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netheriands in August 19%. We would like to thank the participants at the workshop, Jonathan Murdoch and an anonymous referee for their constructive comments.

173

174

Neil Ward and Philip Lowe

is, therefore, a complex web of values and aspirations extending far beyond purely economic rationales that presents such intractable problems for the neo-classical economic modelling of farm management decisions. Studies of family farming in Britain tend to show that one of the primary management objectives of family farms is to maintain family control and pass on an economically secure business to the next generation. Harrison (1975) found that threequarters of English farmers he surveyed in the late 1960s were planning to pass on their businesses to their heirs. These results can be compared with those of a series of studies carried out by researchers at University College London during the mid-1980s (Munton et al., 1987, 1988, 1990). Over 420 farm businesses were surveyed in five study areas in England representing a range of farming regions.’ When asked whether it was expected that the farm would be passed on to the next generation in the family,

66% of farmers who felt able to respond the other said yes. Interestingly,

way or proportion

was only 55% in Staffordshire,

one the

the study

‘Data were collected for 323 farm businesses using semistructured questionnaire survey techniques. Questions were directed at establishing the circumstances of the business in 1970 and how they had changed up to 1985 in three lowland study areas and 1988 in two upland study and at gaining a perspective on the general areas, economic viability and trajectory of the business. (For a more detailed discussion of the methodology, see Munton et al.. 1988). The three lowland study areas were (i) London’s Metropolitan Green Belt, an area of urbanfringe mixed farming; (ii) west Dorset, an area of small, family dairy farms; and (iii) east Bedfordshire, primarily a large-scale cereal producing area with some horticulture. The two upland study areas were west Cumbria, an area of sheep, beef and dairy production mainly in the Lake District National Park; and north-east Staffordshire, an area of similar livestock production on small marginal farms in the Peak District National Park. ‘PATCH stands for Pollution. Agriculture and Technology Change. The research programme has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under its Joint Agriculture and environment Pro~ramme, and has examined the relationship between technological change, farm adjustment and the regulation of water pollution by farm livestock effluents in Devon, and by pesticides in the River Ouse catchment in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Our collaborators in this project were Dr Judy Clark and Dr Susanne Seymour. “For example, survey questionnaires may ask respondents whether they ‘hope’ for a member of their family to succeed to the farm business. Here. positive responses may include farms where relatively young children (say of school age) have expressed an interest in a farming career but the succession is not settled and is not being actively planned for. On the other hand, some surveys, like the Nat West survey, for example, ask farmers to identify their nominated successor. This is a stricter criterion and may, in part, help explain the relatively low result from the Nat West Survey (1992).

area where agriculture was under the greatest economic pressure, but was 77% in Bedfordshire, the most agriculturally prosperous of the five study areas. One possible explanation for this is that the likelihood of succession in the 1980s was partly determined by the economic prospects of agriculture locally. In 1991 further fieldwork was conducted in two new study areas as part of the PATCH Research Programme.’ Sixty dairy farmers were interviewed in Devon in a study area centred upon the catchments of the Rivers Axe, Otter and Culm, and a further 63 arable and mixed farmers were interviewed in the catchment of the River Ouse, upstream of Bedford, in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It was found that only 58% of farms were being managed with a succession to the next generation planned for. These findings would appear to suggest that the falling profitability of some parts of the agricultural sector since the late 1960s but more particularly since the mid-1980s, has gradually undermined confidence in the industry, and the proportion of farms where succession is planned is being eroded. Indeed, a survey of 26,000 U.K. farm businesses in 1991 found that almost a half (48%) of respondents had no nominated successor for their farm (National Westminster Bank, 1992) prompting dramatic headlines in the national press. The Guardian (29 February, 1992, p. 5) reported the survey under the headline ‘Nearly half farms left without future as children plan to get out’. But notes of caution must be sounded, and we would be wise to proceed with care. Fennel1 (1981) expressed concern in the early 1980s about the proportion of family farms in Europe without apparent successors, but this has been difficuIt to corroborate with empirical studies. The main problem arises from drawing comparisons between surveys carried out in a variety of localities, by different researchers employing differing methodologies.4 Moreover, what we actually understand succession to mean can vary too. The most obvious blurring in the terminology has arisen from the confusion between ‘inheritance’ (the transfer of business assets) and ‘succession’ (the handing over of managerial control) (Weston, 1977). But sometimes we need to be even more precise than this. For example, Marsden ef al. (1989, p. 10) have shown how successors may not necessarily take over the ‘home farm’, particularly if more than one child is keen to farm. Sometimes a form of succession takes place whereby successors are established in autonomous businesses nearby. Whether or not such nuances are accommodated in survey techniques adds to problems of comparability between data sources.

Shifting

Values

Succession as a ‘value’ in family farming Rather than view succession simply as a social or bioiogicai~~c~, where the business is either passed on to the next generation or is not, we would argue that it is best interpreted as a social goal or value whereby farm families seek to integrate, over the long term, the management of a business and of the family assets. Of course, this renders the empirical measurement of the extent of commitment by farm families to continuity through succession even more problematic, but is instructive in examining the social and cultural processes through which family farming is being transformed. Succession can be seen as linking together the key decisions and negotiations during the family life cycle with the strategic decisions about the development of the business. It is, at one and the same time, a set of intentions, but also expectations which are reinforced by custom and law. Succession from one generation to the next within a family, therefore, becomes a value that is constructed socially, but also juridically through inheritance, tax, family and tenure law, The features of family enterprises which make them distinctive in capitalist societies are that production is organized through kinship and that property and labour are combined. The dynamics of family enterprises stem from the interplay of household and business. At all times, but especially across generations, the enterprise is dependent upon family formation and development for its survival. In turn, the unit of kin group and work group creates at least dual roles for each member and patterns a division of labour and inequalities of ownership and control based on gender and age relations. Thus, a commitment to succession helps to ‘create’ certainty and common purpose ‘in the running of a farm, and so helps farm families in coping with the contradictions that can arise between the ‘family’ and the ‘business’, between the short and the long term, and between individual and collective goals. These contradictions have been explored by Harriet Friedmann (1986) who has argued that, the unity of property and labour in simple commodity production is contradictory in capitalist societies because it internalises within one person or family the structured conflict between property owners and labourers, who are usually related as employers and

employees (Friedmann,

1986, p. 53).

Succession is thus a key value whereby farm families manage the fissiparous pressures upon them. The reciprocal obligations it expresses helps to bind family m,embers together, within and across the generations and through time, as they seek to accommodate the family life cycle to the vagaries of

in Agriculture the business cycle and overcome between property and labour.

175 the contradictions

It is mainly as a key inst~mental value rather than necessarily as a deeply-rooted intrinsic value that we would see succession in the British context. Symes (1990) draws the contrast with continental Europe of family obligation and social where “concepts status still serve as guiding principles for systems of land transfer” (p. 285). However, in Britain, he “the strength of these values is being suggests undermined by more material considerations” (p. 286) with land and improved farm buildings becoming cornmodified sources of financial investment, rather than a source of prestige and status, or even a means of production. That having been said, it is still true to say that planning for a succession has been a crucially important influence on farm business management and farm adjustment strategies, and remains so for many farm families in Britain. A commitment to continuing in farming provides the farm family with an hermetic view of the future, with succession often providing the key driving force of business change. This point was well illustrated by some of the farmers interviewed during the PATCH Programme’s farm survey who explained that the only reason that they were continuing to farm was because they had successors who were keen to take over the business. As one farmer in his mid-50s running a 650 ha arable farm in Bedfordshire put it, “my son is very keen to take over the business, and if he was not, I would be out of it tomorrow”. Another farmer of similar age who farms 120 ha of arable land in Buckinghamshire felt the same way. He explained, “There was money in [farming] when I first started, but there’s not a hope in hell for anyone now. I’ve got two sons who are very keen to farm. If it was just me, I would be out and investing my money”.

The decline of succession? As an instrumental value, commitment to succession may be eroded by economic or social change. One common explanation for the apparent decline in the proportion of farms with a succession planned is that the falling profitability of agricultural production makes the prospects of taking over a farm business a less attractive proposition for children. This assumption can be empirically examined using the data from the University College London studies in the mid-1980s (Marsden et al., 1989, 1992) to assess the link between the economic trajectory of

176

Neil Ward Table 1. Economic

_ Succession Yes No D/K Total

and Philip

status categories

and family succession

Economic status categories Survivors Marginals

Accumulators __95 (66%) 27 (19%) 23 (16%) 145 (100%)

each farm business and the farm family’s ment to continuity of occupance.

Lowe

94 (55%) 46 (27%) 32 (19%) 172 (100%)

commit-

The ‘economic status’ of each farm in the sample of 423 businesses was established, concentrating on strictly agricultural enterprises. Farms were allocated to one of three categories based on answers received to a set of questions relating to: the profitability of the farm business at the time of interview; how this had changed since 1970; and the farmers expectations of profitability over the next few years. The three categories derived may be defined as follows: ~Accwnulators - farm businesses that provided their occupiers with a steady and often increasing profit since 1970, frequently in association with a growth in business size. Their operators were optimistic about their ability to weather any difficult times ahead. ‘Survivors’ - businesses that generally made a profit but where their ability to support the family could not be automatically assumed. Farming profits had often declined during the mid-19SOs, along with national trends, including rising levels of debt and interest charges. Occupiers’ strategies were frequently adjusted in an endeavour to survive, including the search for new sources of income on and off the farm. businesses where profitability had ‘~~rgina~ize~ been falling steadily in real terms and where, at the time of the survey. most showed little or no profit, an incapacity to reproduce themselves in the long term, and where their occupiers were pessimistic about the future. Without new sources of income (perhaps offfarm) most seemed unlikely to survive into the next generation of occupiers as independent family businesses, although they could make some contribution to family income otherwise earned largely off-farm. the patterns of viability varied across the five localities, in total 35% of businesses were classed as accumulators, 41% were survivors and 24% were marginal. Using these categories, the proportion of farms where succession to the next generation was being planned could then be examined. Table 1 shows that two-thirds of farms in the ‘accumulator’ category were planning for a succession, whereas the proportion dropped to 55% of ‘survivors’ and only

35 Sl 13 99

(35%) (52%) (13%) (100%)

_-

Total

224 124 68 416

-

35% of ‘marginals’. At the same time, the proportion of ‘accumulators’ where succession had definitely been ruled out was under 20%, rising to 27% of ‘survivors’ and 52% of ‘marginals’. This suggests a strong relationship between economic viability and the commitment to succession.” An alternative explanation relates to social change in rural areas. The American anthropologist Peggy Barlett has examined the experience of farm families in Dodge County, Georgia throughout the 1980s and highlights the distinction between two sets of values - agrarian values and industrial values. For Barlett (1993, pp. 6-7), agrarian ideology and values combine several dimensions such as: personal empowerment and pride in meaningful work; the linkage of work and family, of long-term ties not only to kin but to a like-minded community; and the combination of work and family with place and a sense of attachment to land and region. In Dodge County, such values are being challenged and reshaped by new systems of belief which come from urban and industrial society and reflect concern more with materialism, consumption and life-style. Moreover, these ‘industrial values’ are gaining ascendency through mass media and communications, but also because more non-farming people are living in rural areas. Agrarian values are specific to particular geographical and cultural contexts and we would not want to claim that the ideology of Dodge County farmers is replicated in Britain. However, Barlett’s model of farming values being challenged by new social groups moving into rural areas has a resonance with the British experience.

Whilst

‘A chi-squared test yielded a highly significant beyond the 0.1% confidence level.

result

well

As new rural residents have moved, often from large towns and cities, into the deep countryside beyond smail towns and larger villages, so farm families find themselves with neighbours with quite different values and life-styles. The effects of this on the aspirations of farmers’ children can only be guessed at, but it is plausible that they have, in greater numbers, embraced the career aspirations of their new peers and rejected the more traditional family farming ethic of carrying on the family business. It is possible that this may have been compounded by the

Shifting

Values

greater economic integration of farm families through pluri-activity. More generally, national cultural change has eroded the distinctiveness of occupational communities. Succession and environmental

change

It is increasingly becoming recognized that processes of succession on family farms can be linked to changes in the intensity with which environmental resources are managed. For example, Marsden and Munton (1991) have shown how the formal entry of a successor into the farm business can provide the opportunities for what can be quite radical land management and landscape changes, most commonly involving intensification of land use and the removal of landscape features such as hedgerows and woods. Of 22 recorded changes in the key decision-making personnel on farms in their case studies, 13 led to such environmental changes. Recognition of the link between the farm family’s objectives for the future occupancy of the farm and the ‘intensity’ at which the farm’s resources are managed has prompted debates about the plausibility of targeting farmers without successors for environmental payments (Green, 1985; Potter and Lobley, 1992a-c). Potter and Lobley argue that on farms where a succession is not planned for, the development trajectory of the business may differ from those where farmers are preparing to hand over to the next generation. They point out that, the running down of a farm business in old age is more likely to take place where the elderly farmer is working alone on the farm and lacks the incentive to maintain capital assets and lay the grounds for the future expansion which a younger successor or heir is likely to provide (Potter and Lobley, 1992a, p. 60). These

farmers

may

be

more

willing

to enter

con-

servation contracts to extensify their production. Indeed, the conclusions drawn from the results of farm survey fieldwork suggest that, There is a good prima facie case for regarding elderly farmers (especially those without successors) as poten‘To provide some empirical detail on these changes, average dairy herd size in Britain has more than trebled since 1960, from 21 to 65 cows, and farm size has also increased, although not by the same magnitude, such that cows are now stocked at much higher densities. Also, the quantity of silage produced nationally has almost quadrupled since the mid-1970s. The switch to concrete cubicles is almost total, and about 90% of the cows in our 1991 survey were housed in cubicles. This also means that an average sized dairy herd now requires about 2700 litres of water per day for washing down buildings and equipment (Ward et al., 1994; MAFFAVOAD, 1991).

in Agriculture

177

tially important countryside managers and a section of the farming community that should be carefully assessed by policy-makers (Potter and Lobley, 1992b, p. 141).

However, there is a danger here of assuming that the generality of farmers without successors are more responsive and better placed to take up environmental measures. Potter and Lobley’s thesis points to the attractiveness to such farmers of guaranteed income, security and the stability provided by environmental payments which encourage land diversion or extensification. However, our research on farm pollution control highlights the other side of the coin; that such farmers without successors are much less likely to want to invest in capital equipment to improve effluent management and reduce the risk of water pollution. It is, therefore, to a more detailed discussion of the interplay between family farming values and water pollution that we now turn, drawing on interviews with farmers and their families in Devon, an area dominated by familybased dairy farming. The pollution of rivers and streams with effluents such as cattle slurry, silage effluent and yard and parlour washings emerged as a serious problem for intensive dairy farming in Britain in the 1980s. The annual number of reported farm pollution incidents more than doubled during the 1980s and comprised over a third of all major water pollution incidents in 1990 (National Rivers Authority, 1992). The pollution potential load from the slurry and silage produced by a single, average-sized Devon dairy farm has been estimated to be equivalent to that of a small town of 10,800 people (South West Water Authority, 1986). Inadequate effluent storage facilities on farms, coupled with lax handling of farm effluents, have been widely acknowledged as the main cause of pollution incidents. Pressure on storage facilities has increased because of the expansion of dairy herds during the 1960s and 197Os, the switch from feeding hay to silage and from strawbased livestock housing systems to concrete-floored cubicles for cattle, the concentrating of yards and the larger volumes of cleaning water used in milking parlours.6 In response to the rising number of pollution incidents, the Ministry of Agriculture introduced a 50% grant in 1989 to encourage farmers to install or improve pollution control facilities, and this has been coupled with fines of up to f20,OOO under the 1990 Environmental Protection Act in what can be described as a ‘stick and carrot’ approach (Lowe et al., 1992). We have argued elsewhere that the increase in public awareness of farm pollution and a willingness to report incidents to the regulatory authorities contributed to the doubling of the number of farm

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Neil Ward and Philip Lowe

pollution incidents during the 1980s (Ward et al., 1994). Increased reporting rates have been facilitated by social change in the countryside, which can be characterized as part of a shift in emphasis from production (agriculture) to consumption (residential and leisure) concerns (Marsden et af., 1993). New people have moved to rural areas bringing new values about how environmental resources in the countryside should be managed. Devon is an area where rural social change has been particularly marked. Its population grew by 6.7% during the 197Os, compared with a national growth of 0.5%. and subsequently by a further 5.9% during the 1980s (Ward et al., 1994). Moreover, the nonagricultural middle classes have moved into smaller villages and the deep countryside during the 1980s a trend encouraged by the liberalization of the planning system, and facilitated by farmers themselves, many of whom, with government encouragements have sought to realize some of their assets by converting redundant farm buildings for residential purposes (DOE/Welsh Office, 1992; Kneale et al., 1992). Between 1981 and 1990, over 2000 new residential dwellings on agricultural land were given planning permission in the study area, and almost 700 new residential dwellings were permitted through the conversion of barns and other redundant agricultural buildings over the same period. The social fabric of once small agricultural villages has been dramatically changed. many farmers now having new neighbours with quite different perceptions of the function of the countryside. Of the 60 dairy farmers surveyed in Devon, for example, 10 had experienced direct pressure to change their farming practices from neighbours and local people. More generally, there is a perception among farmers that social change in the countryside is diminishing their autonomy. Middle class newcomers are often viewed by farmers as the harbingers of new values and procedures by which farming will increasingly be judged by society at large. It is against this background of social change in the countryside, that any analysis of the shifting values in family farming must be set. There is, however, an important distinction to be made here between Barlett’s study of this phenomenom in Dodge County, Georgia and our own. She sees the challenge to agrarian culture coming from ‘industrial values’ rooted in industrial and urban work and life-styles. In the case of Devon, an area characterized by an influx of retiring migrants and a distinctive service or middle class, we would argue that the new values brought to rural Devon are ‘Again, a &i-squared test yielded a statistically significant result at the 0.1% level.

distinctly ‘post-industrial’, or ‘post-urban’. People are moving to Devon from other parts of urban Britain for its peace, tranquility and beauty. Rural environmental aesthetics and representations are reflected in a strong local environmental politics, with both an amenity and preservationist strand that actually values the traditionally farmed countryside but is disturbed by the way modern farming practices can transform the landscape; and an ecological strand that is anxious about pollution and environmental health. What is at stake are different visions of the countryside. Succession and farm polIution issues

At the superficial level, our survey revealed a link between family succession and investment in pollution control equipment amongst Devon dairy farmers. Table 2 shows that investment in pollution control is much more likely to take place on dairy farms where a succession to the next generation is planned for. On over two-thirds of the farms where a succession was expected, there had been some investment in pollution control facihties over the past ten years. Similarly, on almost two-thirds of farms where succession had been ruled out, no such investment had taken place.7 However, whether farmers have simply invested in pollution control equipment or not is a poor indicator of how sound their environmental management practices might be. Both farmers and the Ministry of Agriculture see investing in slurry stores and dirty water pumps as signs that the problem is being addressed, but this is far from the view of National Rivers Authority pollution officers (Lowe et al., 1992). Facilities are prone to failure and have to be responsibly managed and maintained on a day to day basis, with care taken, for example, to check for blockages in gulleys, pumps and so on. In addition, decisions about the timings of slurry spreading can be crucial in reducing pollution risk. Thus, sound effluent management needs to become a more integral part of routine good farming practice if pollution risks to water are to be properly addressed. Simply installing the equipment is not enough on its own. Given this, the ways that farmers understand and perceive the nature of the pollution threat to local water courses posed by the effluents from their farms can be crucial in preventing pollution. The series of policy initiatives since the late 1980s has helped raise the profile of the risks and impacts of pollution from livestock effluents among the farming community. Moreover, the National Rivers Authority have conducted a farm campaign to raise

Shifting Table 2. Investment Investment

in pollution (1981-91) Yes No Total

Values

in Agriculture

179

in pollution control (1981-91) and family succession control

Is a succession Yes 25 (68%) 12 (32%) 37 (100%)

awareness of the problem, organizing talks with farming groups and visiting individual farms to discuss how effluent management practices might be improved to reduce pollution risks. It has been the ‘stick’ element of the stick and carrot approach that has attracted most attention in the farming press, however. Most livestock farmers understand the farm pollution issue as one of the increasing likelihood of being prosecuted for pollution, stricter regulations governing the standard of pollution control facilities, and a new regulatory authority keener to pursue an adversarial approach to regulation. Pollution regulation has thus become perceived as a major problem to be coped with by dairy farmers, in particular. Indeed, a national survey in 1991 found pollution regulation to be the issue of most widespread concern amongst dairy farmers (Centre for Agri-food Business Studies, 1991). Greater awareness of pollution risk is an important first step in improving effluent management practices on livestock farms. Therefore, farmers’ representations and understandings of the pollution problem were explored in the survey in Devon. From responses to a series of questions on how they felt about agricultural pollution, particularly in relation to other types of pollution, and the ways in which it is regulated, it became clear that the problem of agricultural pollution is viewed by different farmers in different ways, but with some consistent patterns. For analytical purposes, three categories were established, including two contrasting positions, and a large, middle-ground group. Group A (the ‘sceptical farmers’) was inclined to adopt the stance of “what pollution problem?” and contained 10 farmers or 17% of the sample. Farmers in this (minority) group felt that the pollution issue had been “blown up out of all proportion” and that regulation had “gone too far” in restricting what they could do. They were most likely to feel embattled by pollution regulation and tended to be the most vocal complainants of the ways that farmers are treated. All in the group felt that agricultural pollution was far less of a problem than industrial pollution, and suspected that farmers were being more strictly regulated because they were “easy

planned No

6 (40%) 9 (60%) 1.5 (100%)

for? D/K 5 (71%) 2 (29%) 7 (100%)

Six farmers in the group questioned targets”. whether farm effluents were ‘serious’ pollutants at all. For example, when talking about the pollution of water, one farmer said “We are not the main culprits. I suppose with the misuse of chemicals and fertilizers . . . yes . . . but with slurry in water, it’s not a chemical. It is not a dangerous substance. It’s got to go somewhere. It’s got to go into Mother Earth.” This is not to suggest, however, that farmers in this group are not taking steps to upgrade their waste facilities. Seven of the 10 farmers had made improvements to their waste facilities since 1981 and a further two had current plans to make changes to improve pollution control. Group B (the ‘ambivalent farmers’), which contained 37 farmers or 62% of the sample, readily acknowledged that pollution from farm effluents was a problem and that measures had to be taken to solve it. Critically, however, they saw pollution as a problem for farming, rather than as a problem of farming. A similar distinction has been identified by Susan Carr’s research on farmers’ attitudes to conservation (Carr and Tait, 1990). The sense among this majority group of farmers was one of pollution regulations coming from distant, external changes in policy that were beyond their control, but had to be adhered to if only because it was unacceptable to break the law. In other words, pollution is a problem chiefly in the sense that it “can get you into trouble”. The main difficulty, as perceived by this group of farmers, was how to meet the new regulations and the restrictions they implied. These farmers tended not to question the need for action to curb farm pollution and generally accepted that effluents caused pollution problems. The difference between this group’s view of the seriousness of farm pollution and that of the sceptical farmers is perhaps best illustrated by one of the ambivalent farmers who, when asked what pollution meant to him, explained; “Pollution means getting any farm waste into the water system. I think the talk of smells being pollution is highly exaggerated, but waste in water is clearly pollution and you can’t argue about that.” However, several farmers in this group argued that much farm pollution is “accidental” in that it usually results from heavy rain causing yard run-off or from storage facilities failing. They felt, on the whole, that farmers who had been

180

Neil Ward and Philip Lowe

the “victims” of such “accidents” should be treated leniently and encouraged to make improvements to their pollution control facilities. They were keen to distinguish between these “accidents” and the much more serious “‘deliberate” pollution incidents, where, it was stressed, and the full force of the law should be brought to bear. Group C (the ‘radical farmers’) saw pollution as reprehensible. The 13 farmers (22% of the sample) in this group on the whole accepted the need for regulation to address farm waste pollution problems. They expressed approval of the regulations, describing them, for example, as “a good thing” that would help to “put agriculture’s house in order”. Most of the farmers in this group were quite emphatic that regulations must be adhered to and that the adoption of improved effluent management practices was for the good of the industry. It is, these farmers broadly felt, the responsibility of the individual farmer to ensure that pollution is adequately prevented. Therefore. one of the defining characteristics of this group of farmers was that they tended not to differentiate between accidental and deliberate pollution incidents.

backgrounds themselves. What might account for the fact that the succession motive was so weak amongst this group in comparison with the others‘? The ‘radicals’ tended to have more complex land occupancy or tenurial relations. Only four of the 13 farms were typical family owner-occupied dairy farms. Of the others, four were rented from private or institutional landlords and three were owned or managed as non-family partnerships, farming companies or under share farming arrangements. The remaining two were single people farming alone. The relatively low level of commitment to farm family succession will be, in part, a function of the under-representation of owner-occupiers in the group. Ry comparison, for all 10 of the “sceptics’, farms were family owner-occupied, with the farm family much more closely and simply bound to the day to day management of the business.

It is instructive to compare the characteristics of the ‘radicals’ and ‘sceptics’, who represent the two extremes in terms of how the pollution problem is perceived. The ‘radicals’, who viewed causing pollution as reprehensible were mainly a group of younger farmers who occupied larger farms, compared with the ‘sceptics’ who felt that there was “too much fuss” being made over farm pollution and did not recognize it as a serious environmental problem. More than two-thirds of the ‘radicals’ were under 50 years of age, and one-third younger than 40.

Another distinctive characteristic that emerges from a comparison of these two groups of farmers is the fact that the ‘radicals’ appear more likely to embrace diversification as a farm survival strategy. Five had taken steps to diversify during the l%Os, and three of these had established enterprises associated with countryside recreation or tourism. Willingness to diversify was much less apparent among the ‘sceptics’, with only one farm household involved in non-agricultural activities where a single family member was running a retail business away from the farm. Diversification is notoriously difficult on dairy farms because of the specific demands placed upon family labour by the twice daily milking routine. Thus, setting up non-agricultural enterprises is more likely to be part of a mediumto long-term exit strategy than one of ensuring survival in dairying.

Whilst the three categories were not intentionally structured around the concept of succession, a strong pattern emerged from the analysis. It was found that the extent to which farm families are committed to family continuity tends to decline as we move through the three groups. Of the ‘sceptics’, eight out of 10 were planning for a family succession in the future, compared with fewer than two-thirds of the ‘ambivalent’ farmers and under half of the ‘radicals’. Although younger farmers are less likely to be planning for succession because of their relatively early stage in the family life cycle, the ‘radicals’ do appear much less likely to be farming with a succession to the next generation in mind. Indeed five of the 13 farmers had definitely ruled out succession. This lack of commitment to family succession amongst the ‘radicals’ may reflect a wider rejection of the more ‘traditional’ views and agrarian values of the family farm, and is despite the fact that all but two of the radicals were from farming

By drawing comparisons between these two ‘extreme’ groups (Fig. 1). we can begin to see how a farmer’s situation and values might influence the way in which pollution problems are perceived. The approaches of the two groups might best be described as ~traditional’ and ‘modern’. The ‘sceptics’, who felt that farm poilution was being over-emphasized and was not a serious problem, could be said to show characteristics of a ‘traditional’ approach rooted in the ethos of family farming. They saw themselves as a a special group in society, set apart from everyone else. Family farming dominated their lives and they argued that farming was “all we know”. Thus, they tended to be more locked into a productivist. agricultural way of thinking, and were much less likely to diversify their farm businesses. In fact, the group as a whole tended to have reactive as opposed to pro-active strategies. Changes on the farm during the 1980s were more likely to be agricultural, and made in response to

Shifting

Values

Group A ‘Sceptics’ Farm pollution not as bad as industry Farm wastes as a ‘natural* substance Regulations as ‘unfair attack on farmers’ Older

Committed to family continuity Reactive strategies More densely stocked Unwilling to diversify Farmers as a special group in rural society Technical-fix storage solutions Oriented to the conservation of physical capital ____....__ Figure

1. Characteristics

changing economic or family circumstances. These farmers were more likely to feel embattled because of farming’s poor economic fortunes, and added to this, environmental and pollution regulations were seen as another part of society’s ‘attack’ on farmers. However, notions of family continuity remained strong among this group and were linked to dynastic notions of land ownership and farm improvement. They tended to belong to local farming families and had close relative farming in Devon. It is possible that this reinforced their inward looking and ‘agrocentric’ view of the world. On the other hand, the 13 ‘radicals’, who saw farm pollution as reprehensible, could be said to show characteristics of a more ‘modern’ approach. That they tended to be younger farmers is important because not only did they tend to be trained to a higher level, but their experience of training was more recent. Also, they tended to have a broader, outward-looking view rather than a more agrocentric set of values. This could be because of their more extensive social and economic links beyond farming, not only through their diversification activities, but also through socializing outside the local farming community. For example, four of the ‘radicals’ were active in local sports clubs. These farmers, in enjoying wider links beyond farming, were in turn reflecting views about farming’s environmental problems held by that wider society. Perhaps as a result of these different types of social network, they did not tend to see the farming community as a special group set apart from everyone else. With regard to their own farms, these farmers with a more ‘modern’ approach tended to be non-risk averse and more flexible. They viewed themselves more as rural entrepreneurs or “businessmen” and changes in the farm business were often pro-active, with these farmers more readily establishing nonagricultural enterprises on their farms, for example. At the same time, the ‘radicals’ were losing (if they

181

in Agriculture

Group

C

‘Radicals’ Farm pollution just as bad as industry Farm wastes as potentially highly poliuting Regulations essential to ‘put farming’s house in order’ Younger Not committed to family continuity Pro-active strategies Less densely stocked Willing to diversify Farmers as ‘rural entrepreneurs’ Waste management solutions Oriented to the conservation of natural capital -__..._.~ of the two ‘extreme’

groups.

had ever held) the dynastic sense of family continuity, and on several farms succession to the next generation had definitely been ruled out. Some of the farmers in this group had young children who were learning about environmental issues and problems at school, thus providing another route by which new sets of environmental values were flowing into the household. So, how might the seemingly paradoxical finding that more ‘sceptics’ had invested in pollution control facitities than ‘radicals’ - be explained? Of course, those ‘sceptics’ who had invested may have done so because of their greater commitment to succession, and their wish to pass on their farms to their successors with sufficient pollution control facilities to satisfy the regulatory authorities. Indeed, four of the IO ‘sceptics’ acknowledged that they had upgraded their facilities in response to direct pressure from the NRA. In a sense, their investment decisions could, therefore, be construed as being based on a narrower vision of the nature of the problem and of who gains from the investment. These differences in the reasons behind changes in effluent management can be further explored using the farm survey evidence. In investing in pollution control equipment, the ‘sceptics’ were following official policy. It was the view of most of the farmers that once new equipment had been installed, the pollution problem for them was solved. Like MAFF, the farmers saw investing in slurry stores and dirty water pumps as bringing reduced pollution risk. However, this ‘contain and dispose’ approach can be seen as a technical fix, that while reducing the risk of point source pollution incidents, can increase the risks of diffuse pollution run-off from the land (see Lowe et al., 1992). On the other hand, the ‘radicals” representations of the nature of the problem were more critical, and they were more likely to appreciate the wider processes responsible for increasing the risk of pollution. For example, the ‘radicals’ occupied farms that, on average, were 10% less

182

Neil Ward

densely stocked ‘sceptics’.

with

cattle

than

those

of

and Philip Lowe ing’. In the PATCH survey, farmers were asked about their thoughts on what constitutes ‘good farming practice’ and this led onto a discussion about notions of farm improvement. The results are shown in Tables 4 and 5, and are broken down according to succession (Table 4) and the different ways that farmers saw ‘pollution’ (Table 5). Farmers often say that one of their main goals is to pass on their farm to the next generation in a ‘better condition’ than when they took it on themselves. This sense of farm ‘improvement’ is thus often closely linked to notions of family continuity and succession. However, the sentiment conceals two different notions of conone productivist, preoccupied with servation: physical capital; the other environmentalist, and concerned about natural capital. Thus, for some farmers, ‘better condition’ means that the farm is

the

More importantly, however, there were marked differences between the slurry spreading practices of these two extreme groups in the sample. In deciding when exactly to spread slurry on the land, the survey evidence suggests that the greatest risks were being taken by the ‘sceptics’. Only two of the It) ‘sceptics’ thought that the condition of the ground was the most important consideration to bear in mind when deciding when to spread slurry (Table 3), compared to over half of the ‘radicals’. Also, three of the 10 ‘sceptics’ said that the fullness of the slurry store was the most important factor. This implies that waste storage constraints will drive these farmers to spread slurry irrespective of the risk of run-off from land into watercourses, and it was notable that none of the ‘radicals’ gave this response. At the core were divergent

notions

Table 3. Most important

~

-.

more work.

considerations ‘Pollution

Group A (lfl farmers)

Most important slurry spreading considerations Must spread every day Weather Store full or amount of slurry Ground conditions Time of year

No.

%

1 4 3 2

10.0 40.0 30.0 20.0 -

N/A Total

10

by ‘pollution

perception’

perception’ Group B (37 farmers)

groups Group C ( 13 farmers) %

6 II 5 11

16.2 29.7 13.5 29.7

1 2 0 7

7.7 15.4 0.0 53.8

-

2 2

5.4 5.4

1 2

7.7 15.4

100%

37

100%

13

100%

Total

to work/modern buildings economically viable productive that has been farmed ‘sensitively’ know

Total

condition”

mean?

Response to work/modern buildings economically viable productive that has been farmed ‘sensitively’ know

..--

(by succession

With successor

Without

categories) successor

16 1s 14 I3 2

10 8 II 8

4 2 2 5 2

60

37

15

Table 5. What does passing on the farm in a “better condition” categories)

-.

group

No.

Response

Total

or easier

%

._

Easier More More Land Don’t

viable

No.

_~

Table 4. What does passing on the farm in a ‘better

Easier More More Land Don’t

economically

to

farmers, this often means that buildings and equipment are modern and wellmaintained. This sense of a better farm being a more

of ‘good farm-

slurry spreading

prodz&ive, For dairy

Total

Group

16 15 14 13 2

5 3 1

60

mean‘? (by “pollution

A

Group

Group

8 10 II 7 1

-

37

13

1 10

B

perception’

_.-____..

3 2 2 6

C

Shifting

Values

in Agriculture

183

productive one is dominant among those farmers planning for succession. On the other hand, a minority of farmers, particularly including radicals and those without successors, saw the notion of a farm being in a ‘better condition’ as meaning that the land had been farmed sensitively, within environmental constraints, and would articulate this in terms of not “robbing the land” or “taking out more than you put in”.

dominant. In the process, commitment succession in farming is becoming less many farm families. Insofar as this is adoption of a more outward looking consequences may well be beneficial farmers’ receptiveness to environmental

Conclusions

Barlett, P. (1993) American Dreams, Rural Realities: Family Farms in Crisis. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. Carr, S. and Tait, J. (1990) Farmers’ attitudes to conservation. Built Environment 16, 218-231. Centre for Agri-food Business Studies (1991) A Survey of Dairy Farmers’ Attitudes Towards MMB Reform. Royal Agricultural College, Centre for Agri-food Business Studies, Cirencester. Department of the Environment/Welsh Office (1992) Planning Policy Guidance: the Countryside and the Rural Economy, PPG 7, HMSO, London. Fennel, R. (1981) Farm succession in the European Community. Sociologia Ruralis 21, 19-42. Friedmann, H. (19X6) Family enterprises in agriculture: structural limits and political possibilities, In Agriculture, People and Policies, pp. 41-60, Cox, G., Lowe, P. and Winter, M. (eds). Allen & Unwin, London. Gasson, R. (1973) Goals and values of farmers. Journal of Agricultural Economics 24, 521-542. Gasson, R. and Errington, A. (1993) The Farm Family Business. CAB International, Wallingford. Gasson, R., Crow, G., Errington, A., Hutson, J., Marsden, T. and Winter, M. (1988) The farm as a family business: a review. Journal of Agricultural Economics 39, I-41. Green, B. (1985) Countryside Conservation, 2nd edn, Allen & Unwin, London. Harrison, A. (1975) Farmers and Farm Businesses in England. University of Reading, Department of Agricultural Economics, Miscellaneous Study No. 62. Hutson, J. (1987) Father and sons: family farms, family businesses and the farming industry. Sociology 21, 215229. Kneale. J., Lowe, P. and Marsden, T. (1992) The Conversion of Agricultural Buildings: an Analysis of Variable Pressures and Regulations Towards the PostProductivist Countryside, Working Paper 29. ESRC Countryside Change Initiative, Newcastle University. Lowe, P., Clark, J., Seymour, S. and Ward, N. (1992) Pollution Control on Dairy Farms: an Evaluation of Current Policy and Practice, S.A.F.E. Alliance, London. MAFF/WOAD (1991) Code of Good Agricultural Practice for the Protection of Water, MAFF, London. Marsden, T. and Munton, R. (1991) The farmed landscape and the occupancy change process, Environment and Planning A 23, 663-676. Marsden, T., Munton, R., Whatmore, S. and Little J. (1989) Strategies for coping in capitalist agriculture: an examination of the responses of farm families in British agriculture. Geoforum 20, 1-14. Marsden, T., Munton, R. and Ward, N. (1992) Incorporating social trajectories into uneven agrarian development: farm businesses in upland and lowland Britain. Sociologia Ruralis 32, 408-430. Marsden, T., Murdoch, J., Lowe, P., Munton, R. and

In explaining why fewer farm families seem to be planning the future of their businesses with succession in mind, two different explanatory models can be discerned. The first sees falling economic returns as the key determining factor, while the second sees social change in the countryside as impacting upon the values and aspirations of farm families. Our analysis suggests a more complex reality combining aspects of the two. Declining economic fortunes in farming can be seen to have been compounded by social change in the countryside, but economic change also effects social change in farming. Social change must not be viewed as exogenous to farming, for farm households form an integral part of rural society. It is a dialectic between the economic and the social which contributes to the transformation of agrarian values and fosters an openness to new values. Through an examination of the construction of environmental values and understandings of pollution, we can begin to see how agrarian ideology and culture might be being challenged and reshaped within a changing rural society. New groups with different perspectives on rural environmental management are establishing themselves in the heart of localities once dominated by the farming way of life. At the same time, and in part as a result of such rural social change, regulatory policy has required that farmers incorporate a greater concern for reducing environmental risks into their routine farming practices. Complex sets of influences are bearing down on how farmers understand pollution, what counts as ‘good farming’ and their own farming strategies. One important outcome of this changing context is a reassessment of commitment to family continuity of farm occupancy.

This is not to say, however, that as new groups move to rural areas, so the values of the farming community simply become subordinated and disappear in a mechanistic sense. Rather, the contacts between farmers and their new neighbours provide differential conditions and opportunities for farmers and farm families to position themselves within a rural

society longer

in which a post-productivist politically, economically

agriculture is no and culturally

to family relevant for part of the view, the in terms of concerns.

References

184

Neil Ward

and Philip

Flynn, A. (1993) Constructing the Countryside. University College London Press, London. Munton, R., Marsden, T. and Eldon, J. (1987) Occupuncy Change

and

the

Farmed

Landscape:

Final

Report,

Countryside Commission, Cheltenham. Munton, R., Whatmore, S. and Marsden, T. (1988) Reconsidering urban-fringe agriculture: a longitudinal analysis of capital restructuring on farms in the Metropolitan Green Belt, Transactions of the Inst. of British Geographers

13, 324-336.

Munton, R., Marsden. T. and Ward, N. (1990) Social and Economic Change in Upland Agriculture. Unpublished report submitted to the Leverhulme Trust. National Rivers Authority (1992) The Influence of Agriculture Wales.

on the Quality of Natural

Waters in England

and

National Rivers Authority, Ely. National Westminster Bank (1992) Nut West National Farm Survey: Summary Report and Tables, National Westerminster Bank Agricultural Office, Coventry. Potter, C. and Lobley, M. (1992a) Elderly farmers as countryside managers. In Restructuring the Countryside:

Lowe

Environmental Policy in Practice, pp. 54-68, Gilg, A. (ed.), Avebury, Aldershot. Potter, C. and Lobley, M. (1992b) The conservation status and potential of elderly farmers: results from a survey in England and Wales. Journal of Rural Studies 8, 133143.

Potter, C. and Lobley, M. (1992~) Ageing and succession on family farms: the impact on decision-making and land use, Sociologia Ruralis 32, 317-334. South West Water Authority (1986) Environmental Investigation of the River Torridge, South West Water Authority, Department of Environmental Services, Exeter. Symes, D. (1990) Bridging the generations: succession and inheritance in a changing world. Sociologia Ruralis 30, 280-291.

Ward, N., Lowe, P., Seymour, S. and Clark, J. (1994) Rural restructuring and the regulation of farm pollution, Environment and Planning A (forthcoming). Weston, W. (1977) The problem of succession, Farm Management

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