172

THE FARM FAMILY LIFE CYCLE, SUCCESSION PATHS AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN BRITAIN’S COUNTRYSIDE

Clive Potter and Matt Lobley*

Research into the physical extent and rate of recent environmental change in the British countryside is at a more advanced stage than that concerned with causes and processes. This paper presents findings from a project designed to introduce a socio-economic component into the Government’s Countryside Surveys. Based on a questionnaire survey of occupiers with land in 169 l k m squares across Britain and a linked analysis of environmental and farm survey data, it examines the connection between farm business and land cover change in the squares. Different trajectories of farm business, and hence environmental, change are defined and related to lifecycle effects and influences associated with succession. A conclusion is that the processes of succession and inheritance are continuing to define critical transitions during which farm business, and hence environmental change, is most likely to be taking place.

1. Background Farmers continue to be by far the most important agents of landscape change: in the British countryside. Their decisions as business peo le and as members of

impact on landscapes, habitats and species. Nevertheless, it is only within the last few years that the nature of this impact has begun to be quantified and properly understocd. An information gap existed because, until surprisingly late in the day, there were few reliable estimates of either the rate or countrywide extent of environmental change. Early work concentrated on identifying the ty es of change taking place, the important ‘New Agricultural

landscape changes being experienced in lowland England (Westmacott and Worthington, 1974). In a review of the literature conducted in the early 1980s, Munton (1983) could still point to significant gaps in knowledge which made it difficult to assess how rapidly change was taking place. Comparisons between landscapes and habitats were frustrated by the absence of a standardised methodology, while reliance on case studies meant that many locations had not been surveyed at all. The first countrywide study of landscape change (for * Clive Potter and Matt Lobley are with Wye College, University of London, W e, Ashford, Kent

TN25 5AH. The research project on which this paper is based was fundedYby the Economic and Social Research Council and the Department of the Environment’s Wildlife and Countryside Directorate. We are grateful for the contribution of ITE, Merlewood in providing, and assisting in the analysis of, Countryside Survey data.

farm households exert a powerful, cumulative and a E ove all, widespread,

Landscapes’ stu dp y .of the mid 1970s, for instance, describing the sort of

Journal of Agricultural Economics 47(2) (1996) 172-190

THE FARM FAMILY LIFE CYCLE 173

England and Wales at least) was commissioned by the Department of the Environment (DOE) and Countryside Commission (CC) in 1985 and employed aerial photographs to produce national estimates of land use change between 1947 and 1980 (Huntin s Surveys, 1986). Meanwhile, the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITET was using its Land Classification System as a sampling frame to carry out detailed field surveys throughout Britain in 256 lkm squares visited in 1978 and 384 visited again in 1984. Under the DoE- financed Count side Survey 1990 (CS 1990) these squares plus 124 others

ecological change taking place between these dates based on an integration of field data with satellite imagery (Barr et al., 1993). Now arguably the most comprehensive survey of environmental chan e in the British countryside ever

for a re-survey in 2000. Its advantages to policymakers are threefold: it is national in scope; it is based on a time series long enough to give some indication of rates of change and it employs a standardised methodology.

Nevertheless, it leaves unanswered important questions about the causes of recent environmental change. Empirical knowledge about the socio-economic processes (as against the physical patterns) of countryside change is today as fragmentary as ever. True, there is general agreement that it is to the decisions of farmers that researchers must look in order to explain why chan e is taking

ranging from studies which merely connect an episode or trend to the management decision which produced it, to those which seek to uncover the policy and other influences which shape, constrain and enable decision making itself. Explanations have co-evolved with the policy debate surrounding agriculture and the environment as interest has shifted away from a narrow concern with immediate causes to underlying processes (see Table 1). Early debate during the 1970s and early 1980s was concerned both with the actions which were bringing landscape change about and the culpability of those carrying them out. Positions polarised as, on the one hand, farmers were castigated for their “theft of the countryside” (Shoard, 1980) or, on the other, defended as good stewards and distanced from the few ‘black sheep’thought to be responsible for any conflicts which arose. Neither position could be sustained for long. On the one hand mounting evidence of the sheer pervasiveness of environmental change discredited the ‘little local difficulty’ view of the problem. On the other, ad hominem criticisms of farmers began to

were resurveye Y in 1990 and an analysis undertaken of land cover and

undertaken, CS 1990, has closed the knowle % ge gap and laid the foundations

place. But this can be interpreted with varying degrees of sop fl istication,

Table 1 Explaining and Managing Land-Use Change- Coevolving Research and Policy Priorities Level of Explanation Nature of Explanation Research Agenda Policy Priorities Immediate causes Attributes Identifying early Developing

environmental change adopters of new . voluntaristic solutions to “the things technologies through to land use conflict farmers do” analysis of motives

Driving forces Ascribes Understanding the Reformingpolicy to environmental change direction of change create more conducive to policy pressures and and developin economic environment technical progress predictive mofels

Underlying processes Describes the Ex laining the pattern Ensuring effective and tendencies and family antfincidence of efficient design and situations which change in terms of deliveryofalternative accompany or trigger underlying processes policy programmes environmental change

and behaviour

174 C. POTlZR AND hi. LOBLEY

seem less convincing as commentators looked beyond the farm gate for the driving forces behind agricultural change (Potter, 1986). According to the ‘policy thesis’ which began to emerge,

the problem is not one of ill will and ignorance but of a system (chiefly the Common Agricultural Policy) which systematically establishes financial inducements to erode the countryside, offers no rewards to revent

want to farm in a way which enhances the rural environment. (Cheshire, 1985, p. 17)

With gathering support for the idea that agricultural policy should be reformed on environmental grounds, circumstantial evidence such as that reviewed by Rae (1993) was marshalled to establish a causal link between levels of farm support and the nature, speed and direction of recent environmental change (see Bowers and Cheshire, 1983 and Cheshire, 1985). The concern was to identify the broad driving forces behind environmental change in order to make the case for equally broad policy reform.

More recently the policy debate has moved on to new ground. The invention of agri-environmental policy in the mid 1980s, beginning with the designation of the first Environmentally Sensitive Areas, and culminating with the agreement in 1992 by farm ministers to an EU-wide programme of measures, allows policymakers to offer farmers environmental contracts which are designed to deflect, slow down or speed up environmental change as appropriate (Morris and Potter, 1995). This has meant a switch away from generalities to specifics as interest focuses on how best to target and deliver the new schemes to farmers in order to maximise their effectiveness and environmental value for money. It creates a need for new kinds of knowledge as broad-brush explanations couched in terms of driving forces become less useful than those seeking to identify habitat rich and habitat poor farms and the factors - behavioural, social, economic, as well as policy-related - which determine where change is taking place. In this latest coevolution of the policy and research agendas, the need IS for analyses of the decisions farmers make, but more particularly, the reasons they make them. A basic assumption is that environmental change can ultimately be traced to actions taken to maintain or increase farm household income and ensure family continuity in farming. Another is that farm households with shared characteristics and pursuing similar survival strategies are likely to have similar environmental histories. In an early investigation into the processes of landscape change conducted along these lines, Potter (1986) commented that while it is clear some farmers are much greater contributors than others, researchers have still not succeeded in understanding the causal relationships involved. Later work conducted under the aegis of the ESRC’s Countryside Change research programme nevertheless managed to give some pointers to the relationship between a farm household‘s economic trajectory, occupancy change and environmental change (Munton and Marsden, 1991, Marsden and Munton, 1991). A continuing methodological problem affecting this and other studies, however, has been the lack of reliable base line data describing the rate and extent of environmental change at the farm level. Researchers must typically rely on farmers’ own estimates of change or, in the case of the Countryside Change work, on incomplete aerial photographic coverage of study areas. Focusing on study areas also limits the extent to which change can be observed and studied in a wide enough range of locations to gain insights into pattern and process.

Following completion of the CS 1990, an opportunity presented itself to carry out a social survey with the aim of integrating farm survey data with

market failure and increases penalties imposed ... on farmers w E o may

THE FARM FAMILY LIFE CYCLE 175

environmental data from ITE’s field surveys in the lkm sample squares that are distributed across Great Britain. This paper draws on results from a recently completed project in which occupiers of land in 169 of the 254 lkm squares surveyed by ITE in 1978,1984 and 1990 have been identified and interviewed through a farm survey. The paper begins with a brief description of the methodology employed. It then gives an overview of the pattern of environmental change taking place on survey farms based on a new analysis of CS 1990 data. This leads to a comparison of the characteristics of high and low change farms and their associated management histories. The paper concludes by exploring the different trajectories of change and offers an explanation for these in terms of the linked processes of farmer succession, inheritance and retirement.

2. Methodology

ITE’s Land Classification System (LCS) has been designed to provide a framework for ecological sampling at national level (Barr et al., 1993). Using the lkm squares of the Ordnance Survey National Grid as a sampling unit, researchers have grouped the squares into thirty-two land classes on the basis of a wide range of environmental parameters. The land classes describe the environmental character of all landscape types likely to be found in GB and so can be used as a sampling frame for field surveys, the results of which may be grossed up to produce nationally reliable estimates of stock and change. The LCS is not without its critics. Because the land classes are derived with respect to natural features, some have argued that it underrepresents certain man- made and influenced landscapes types (see for instance, Roberts, 1994). Having said that, recent sensitivity analyses undertaken by Bunce et af. (1996) suggest that the LCS offers an efficient way of sampling elements in the farmed landscape where expensive censuses are not available. This is precisely what the CS 1990 attempts to do. Resting on a field survey of a stratified random sample of 508 lkm squares selected to represent each of the 32 land classes, data have been collected on land cover, landscape features, habitats and vegetation and estimates of change calculated by comparing the stock present in 1990 with that for 1984 for the 381 squares visited on both occasions. Data on botanical change in 254 of the squares have also been collected from random1 placed quadrats. The time series here is 1978, 1984 and 1990. As Stott (1994); points out, the resulting body of data is unparalled in its coverage and, although subject to a number of limitations (the Survey does not include information about rare or localised features and inevitably suffers from the sampling errors associated with a sampling approach), offers a national picture of the rate and extent of recent environmental change. Until this point, however, little was known of the reasons for the changes being observed. In 1993 a further social survey was therefore conducted of occupiers with land in 169 of the lkm sample squares in an effort to explain some of the changes CS 1990 was recording. Data from this survey form the basis of the analysis which follows.

A first step was to identify the farmers concerned and to digitise the boundaries of the land parcels held by them inside the squares with a view to linking CS 1990 records to the socio-economic data generated by the questionnaire. Some 833 potential respondents were identified on this basis relating to 204 lkm squares for which ownership information was available from ITE field books. Of these, 50 names were eliminated for reasons of double counting or ineligibility, leaving an effective sample of 783 occupiers. A total of 504 farm interviews were successfully conducted in 169 squares (see

176 C. POTIER AND M. LOBLEY

Figure 1 Distribution of Farm Survey and Countryside Survey Sample Squares

Countryside Survey squares surveyed by Wye College

0 Remaining Countryside Survey

00 00 0

Figure l), giving a response rate of 64%. Sample squares are not evenly distributed across the land surface of GB since they are chosen to represent land classes rather than locations. Nevertheless, as can be seen from Figure 2, the farm survey achieved a good coverage of the three broad landscape type categories devised by Barr et al., (1993) and into which the squares (and thus

THE FARM FAMILY LIFE CYCLE 177

Figure 2 Sample Distribution by Landscape Type: Farm Survey and Countryside Survey Compared

Source: Farm Survey and Countryside Survey Notes: The landscape t pe classification is derived by combining separate land classes into three

distinct groups g e e Barr eral., 1993). Briefly, arable landscapes are dominated by arable crops and intensive grass and are concentrated largely in the South, East Anglia and East Midlands. ‘Pastural’ landscapes are characterised by large areas of pasture, small fields, hedgerows and small woods, and are typical of western Britain. In contrast, upland landscapes, found particularly in north and west Britain, are dominated by a mixture of low intensity dairy and forestry. This landscape contains extensive tracts of semi-natural vegetation.

the survey farms) fall.* The resulting farm sample contains an excellent cross- section of farm types and sizes, though in structural terms it is somewhat biased in favour of larger holdings and rather over-represents livestock farms (see Figures 3 and 4). This former is due in part to over-representation of holdings of 50 ha or more, reflecting the sampling procedure which identified respondents on the basis of land held in the lkm squares: on average those with larger holdings are easier to identify, having a greater area of land within the square. The structure of the sample is also affected by the presence of rather more large Scottish farms and estates than might be predicted from census figures (for a fuller discussion of ‘the human sample’ in the lkm squares, see Potter and Loblev. 1996a). * For the purposes of analysis it was assumed that the area of the farm lying outside of the sample

square belonged to the same landscape type as the square.

178

Figure 3 Distribution of Holdings by Farm Size: Farm Survey and MAFFCensus Data Compared

C. POITER AND M. LOBLEY

Source: Farm Survey and MAFF Census Data

The analysis proceeded in three stages. Data supplied by ITE gave the land cover breakdown of each parcel in 1984 and 1990 and a measure of the ‘environmental stock’ present at each date was derived. This was based on the recorded area of deciduous woodland, semi-natural vegetation and extensive grass using definitions supplied by ITE. * Parcels were subsequently categorised o n the basis of the degree of change experienced over the study period 1984-1990. The main thrust of the analysis was then to identify high and low change parcels and compare the socio-economic profiles of the farms to which they belong. More detailed explorations of the management histories of survey farms were undertaken to elucidate the link between farm business development and the trajectory of env.ironmenta1 change in the sample sauares. * Environmental stock wasdefined using the ITE definitionsof

Deciduous woodland Extensive grass, which includes unimproved or little improved grass, calcareous grass and weedy swards with more than 25% cover of non-sown grasses, broadleaf weeds or rushes. Semi-nmtral vegetation, which includes moorland, unmanaged grassland dominated by tall herbs, heathland and bogland. See Potter and Lobley (19%a) for a fuller description of these categories.

THE FARM FAMILY LIFE CYCLE 179

Figure 4 Distribution of Holdings by Farm Type: Farm Survey and MAFF Census Data Compared

Source: Farm Survey and MAFFCensus Data

3. The High Change Farms A linked analysis of farm survey and CS 1990 data shows that in 44% of cases the environmental stock present in 1990 is the same as in 1984. Where change has occurred it chiefly involves losses and gains in the extensive grass component of environmental stock, with only fractional changes in semi- natural vegetation being recorded. Significantly, change is highly concentrated on relatively few parcels, 90% of the area of environmental stock subject to a change taking place on just 17% of arcels. By farm type, 57% of the total area

accounting for a further 21%. Change is especially spatially concentrated in pastural and upland landscapes, with grassland farms accounting for the lion’s share of changes taking place here, contributing 78% and 93% respectively of the total area subject to a change. This very uneven pattern of change raises the question: do high change farm businesses share characteristics in common which might explain why change has occurred? In order to answer this, a cluster analysis .using the K-Means Cluster Procedure in SPSS for Windows was conducted which drew on farm survey data to group farmers on the basis of the changes they reported making to land in the squares. This threw up five clusters which ‘contained’ a sufficient number of cases to warrant further analysis (see Table 2).

subject to a change was locate B on grassland farms with mixed farms

180 C. P O m R AND M. LOBLEY

Table 2 Cluster Analvsis Results Cluster I - Livestock improvers and intensifiers: A well defined group of high change farms,

concentrated in pastural and upland landscapes (46% and 36% found here respectively). The majority of farmers in this cluster are cattle and sheep fanners (52%) while 23% operate dairy farms, and 25% are over 200 ha in size. These are the farms most likely to have camed out land improvement in the recent past: a high ercentage of this roup have removed internal field boundaries or camed out field undergainage (86%), wlfiile 77% increased fertiliser applications on grass and/or increased stocking density.

Clusrer 2 - Livestock intensifiers: A grou of farmers clearly intensifying production alongside little or no land improvement. 54% of t h s cluster are found in pastural landsca es, 52% operate livestock farms while 30% are responsible for dairy businesses. This is reffected in the high proportion intensifying grassland use - 56% increased fertiliser use on grass and 85% increased stocking density.

C h t e r 3 -Arable improvers and intensifiers: A grou of high change farms concentrated in arable landscapes. This cluster is made up of mostb arable and mixed farms (52% and 26% respectively) and 30% of the holdings in this cluster are in excess of 200 ha. Members have been active in erecting new agricultural buildings (23%). removing field boundaries (29%) and carrying out field underdrainage (33%). but are particularly distinguished by large increases in the intensity of land use on their farms in the recent ast. 84% have increased fertiliser use on arable land and 69% increased use of pesticidesandjbr herbicides.

Cluster 4 - Livesrock extensifiers: A very distinct group of small, grassland farms found in pastural and arable landscapes (57% are less than 50ha and 64% are livestock or dairy farms). The distinguishing characteristics of this grou are low levels of chan e and moves towards extensification. For example, less than 2% gave removed field bounhries and only9% have carried out field underdrama e but 67% have reduced stocking densities since 1978. Farmers in this cluster are the least l ihly to have increased fertiliser use on grass, indeed 51% have actually decreased fertiliser use.

carried out field scale drainage works.

As might be expected, Cluster 5 , containing farmers with low or zero change parcels, accounts for the majority of farmers in the sample. Their very low propensity to improve or reclaim land or intensify production (see Table 3) correlates with a high proportion of parcels belonging to farms in this cluster that had the same land cover breakdown in 1990 as in 1984. More interesting is the finding that farmers with high change parcels can be grouped into four quite tightly defined clusters on the basis of their recent land management histories, viz; those actively improving land and intensifying production; those for whom intensification appears to be taking place against a background of rather lower rates of land improvement and those actually extensifying roduction. Are the

active change agents in the recent past? Table 4 suggests that degree of dependence on agricultural income sources

could be one such distinguishing characteristic, with the extensifiers being significantly less dependant than any of the other groupings. Indeed, by comparison with farmers in the other high change clusters, extensifiers appear to be following a quite different path of farm development. If not actually running down their farms, they have conspicuously failed to undertake any land improvement or intensification over the study period and relatively few have carried out investment or re-equipment of their farms. Very few of them are planning to acquire more land or carry out significant capital investment and a high proportion (37%) do not expect to be in farming in 10 years time,

clusters differentiated in ways which might explain why t !i ey have been such

THE FARbl FAMILY LIFE CYCLE 181

Table 3 Changes Undertaken on Parcel Land Since 1978 by Cluster Proportion Making Changes

Livestock Improvers

Intensifiers Intensifiers Intensifiers Extensifiers Stabilisers and Livestock Arable

New agricultural buildings 59.1 14.8 23.4 21.8 8.3 New non-a-micultural buildings 9.1 0.0 3.9 7.3 0.0 Field boundary removal 29.5 9.3 28.6 1.8 3.1 Underdrainage 79.5 1.9 32.5 9.1 0.0 Drained marshy ground 59.1 0.0 3.9 1.8 3.1 Reclaimed rough grazing 15.9 3.8 5.2 1.8 1.0 Converted grass to arable 27.3 7.4 19.5 5.5 3.6 Converted arable to grass 50.0 0.0 15.6 16.4 3.6 Increased femliser on grass 43.2 55.6 22.1 9.1 0.0 Reduced fertiliser on grass 31.8 0.0 5.2 50.9 0.0 Increased fertiliseron arable 11.4 1.9 84.4 3.6 1.6 Reduced fertiliser on arable 6.8 0.0 6.5 0.0 0.0 Increased stocking density 68.2 85.2 23.4 10.9 0.0 Reduced stocking density 4.5 0.0 2.6 67.3 0.0 Changed croppin patterns 20.5 3.7 54.5 10.9 4.7

Reduced pesticideherbicide 36.4 0.0 3.9 5.5 0.0 New tree planting 18.2 1.9 14.3 14.5 2.1 Replanting trees 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Increased pestmdeferbicide 13.6 13.0 68.8 1.8 1.0

Entered conservation scheme 25.0 1.9 2.6 16.4 2.6 Entered set aside 4.5 5.6 58.4 9.1 9.8 Source: Fann Survey

Table 4 Dependence on Agricultural Income by Farmer Cluster (Row %) Proportion of Total Household Income from Agricultural Sources

(% of Cluster) <25% 25-<50% 50-<75% >=75% Number

Livestock improvers &intensifiers 9.3 7.0 7.0 76.7 43 Livestock intensifiers 11.3 1.9 11.3 75.5 76 Arable intensifiers 3.9 2.6 10.5 82.9 51 Extensifiers 31.4 9.8 13.7 45.1 53 Stabilisers 10.3 4.1 8.9 76.6 177 All farmers 11.5 4.8 9.5 74.2 400 The association between cluster group and dependence on agricultural income was significant at

Source: Farm Survey. 5% level using chi-square.

reflecting the high proportion (58%) who are over 55. The recent management histories of farmers embarked on intensification andor changes to the physical layout of their farms, are predictably similar. All of them exhibit a high degree of dependence on agricultural income sources (see Table 4) and the record of high capital spending, land purchase and generally more bullish attitude to the future (see Figure 5) , combine to suggest what has been called a “professionalising” mode of farm business development (Arkleton Trust, 1992) in which commitment to the core farm business is being increased through investment and re-equipment. Thus 82% of livestock improvers and intensifiers have carried out significant capital investment and 46% have acquired land in the last 7 years while 63% carry farm debt and 31% have seen their level of debt increase in the last 5 years. Similarly, 76% of arable and livestock intensifiers have carried out major investment programmes and 54% have acquired land although there is a lower incidence of debt here and fewer farms esperiencing an increase in farm debt (52% and 19% respectively).

182

Figure 5 Future Plans by Farmer Cluster

C. POITER AND M. LOBLEY

Note: The association between cluster group and plans for significant future investment was

Source: Farm Survey. significant at 5% level usingchi-square.

All of which supports the distinction between a small number of developing, expansionist farms, a large majority of essentially static businesses and a group of farmers, disengaged or disengaging from full time agriculture, that is a common findin of much recent work on farm business change (see Gasson and Errington, 1994. But this is only over the recent past. What the analysis cannot show is how far these (after all, very recent) patterns of farm development and their associated environmental effects are period specific or more enduring features of the farm businesses, vital questions as far as assessing, predicting and understanding environmental change is concerned. Historically, a sudden surge in intensification and land improvement in situations where there has been little previous change is likely to have a greater (or at least, different) environmental impact than further consolidating change in situations where environmental stock has already been much depleted. Meanwhile, predictions about future change rest on shaky foundations if they merely extrapolate from management strategies or tendencies which are temporary phenomena, phases through which farm businesses pass. Above all, analyses of *the causes of change risk missing the way strategies evolve and hence being able to identify any causal or influencing factors which operate over the long term, or even between generations.

THE FARM FAMILY LIFE CYCLE 183

4. Trajectories of Change One hypothesis is that a ‘catching up’ process is at work here and that the high change farmers highlighted are sim ly laggards in the diffusion of land

past because constraints to development have suddenly been removed by a change in personal or family circumstances. There is certainly evidence to suggest that land use change was once much more widespread on survey farms than is has been since 1984. If expansionary agricultural policies are a “rising tide which lifts all boats”, then the 1960s and 70s were, according to survey evidence, the high water mark of land use change, with over 60% of all field underdrainage, 68% of hedgerow removal and 70% of all grass to arable conversions being telescoped into these two eventful decades. Figure 6 compares the extent of land improvement operations taking place at different times, showing clearly that while conventional land improvement has declined from a 1970s peak, extensification has increased, with significantly more farmers embarking on diversification during the 1980s than at any other time. Evidently, the CS 1990 has photogra hed the tail end of a process of change

continuous on some farms than others. Recent environmental and land use change on farms needs to be understood in terms of longer trajectories of farm business development than the CS 1990 snapshot allows.

improvement technologies, some of w R om have only been active in the recent

which stretches back over several B ecades and is likely to be much more

Figure 6 Land Improvement and Farm Management Changes by Decade Since the 1960s

Source: Farm Survey.

184 C. POTTER AND M. LOBLEY

In order to ascertain what these might be, farmers (or their predecessors, if present) were asked about the management histories of their existing farms. Data were collected describing the pattern of capital investment, enterprise change and land improvement over long periods and this was related to the land use changes recorded since 1978 through CS 1990. Table 5 shows that while many of those most active in the recent past have always been upgrading their farms in one way or another, a significant percentage are true laggards in the land improvement and intensification process. 58% of arable and livestock intensifiers, for instance, have been making changes to the layout of their farms over the entire period but 69% of livestock improvers have only embarked on restructurin and land use change of any significance since 1978. The table also shows that t a e low percentage of extensifying and stable farmers undertaking land use change in either the recent or middle past, though a significant minority have a history of intensification and land improvement behind them.

Putting together these results with the outcome of the cluster analysis reported above points to five different patterns of farm development taking place on survey farms over the last thirty years: (i) Recent Developers: farmers who have carried out land improvement and

intensification from a low base over the period and sought to re-equip their farms with a view to increasing the income earning capacity of the core agricultural business;

(ii) Consolidators: farmers carrying out land improvement and intensification from an already high base, again with a view to making the core farm business more profitable;

(iii) Stabilisers: farmers making few, if any, changes to land use or farm layout over the period corresponding to a stable or holding pattern of farm business development;

(iv) Disengagers: farmers who, while carrying out few changes to the layout or attern of land use on their farms, have sought actively to reduce K ousehold dependence on the agricultural business through diversification

andor taking up employment off the farm;

(v) Withdrawers: farmers experiencing a decline in income from agriculture over the period and taking no action to reverse this or seek out new income sources.

Table 5 Farm Management Histories of Survey Farms (Column %) Time Livestock

of hange. & Intensifiers Intensifiers Intensifiers Extensifiers Stabilisers All Farms 30.8 42.9 58.3 0.0 0.0 23.4 High, High

Low, High 69.2 57.1 41.7 0.0 0.0 26.3 Low, Low 0.0 0.0 0.0 69.6 62.5 32.2 High, Low 0.0 0.0 0.0 30.4 37.5 18.0 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 * High, High: high change 1963-1978, high change 1978-1990.

Low, High: low change 1963-1978, highchange 1978-1990. Low, Low: low change 1963-1978, low change 1978-1990. High, Low: high change 1963-1978, low change 1978-1990.

Improvers Livestock Arable prPe

Source: Farm Survey.

THE FARM FAMILY LIFE CYCLE 185

5. The Lifecycle Influence How can these different trajectories be explained? As Bennett (1982, p.299) has pointed out, family farms, like most human enterprises, tend to have cyclical histories “with a start, a middle and then perhaps a new start. The important question is how this historical sequence differs from one endeavour to another.” Why then in some cases has farm business development apparently been delayed for so long, only to be embarked upon in the recent

ast when the policy environment had become so much less conducive? Also, E ow to explain the characteristic cycle of intensification and extensification exhibited on some farms? Why are some farmers proceeding to run down their farms after a lifetime spent building them up? A likely candidate is the farm family life cycle itself. It was never very likely that the policy influence had operated in isolation; at any one time there will always be farmers who, by dint of stage in life cycle, are embarking on expansion and others who may be running down their farms in retirement and old age. More precisely, the processes of succession and inheritance which give rise to, and are the product of, certain lifecycle events may define critical transitions when farm business restructuring, expansion and retrenchment is most likely to take lace. In his classic study of the farm family development cycle, Nalson (19 f? 8) offers an explanation in terms of an early, middle and late stage determined by the farmer’s marriage, birth of children, their later dispersal and his eventual retirement. Nalson’s view is that each stage tends to place different strains on the business, creating periods of labour excess and undersupply and that this, together with the waxing and waning of the farmer’s own ambitions and aspirations, leads to periods of expansion, consolidation and retrenchment. In support of this, Symes (1972, p.25) has argued, apparently with little sense of exaggeration, that “variations in farm performance (over time) may often be explained largely by this factor alone”. Gasson and Errington’s (1993) comment is that, although now a little outdated and sociologically imprecise, the lifecycle approach is a useful way of bringing family processes to bear on studies of farm business change.

An overlapping view is that other factors, related to the lifecycle but less easily assigned to particular phases, may be o erating which cut across this

1996b) suggests that the succession status of the farm family household is particularly important in shaping the way farm businesses develop over time. A t its simplest, the presence of a successor provides an incentive to expand the farm, invest in capital and increase output over longer periods than would be the case if succession is uncertain or has been ruled out. A “succession effect” operates as some businesses are developed in anticipation of succession taking place, either to provide a living for the successor and his family on the same farm or (more rarely nowadays) to generate sufficient capital to set up the successor on a separate holding. With succession underway a “successor effect” comes into play on successor farms as younger managers put through changes to the way the farm is managed and even embark on new rounds of expansion and restructuring. This successor effect can be gradual or sudden, depending on the process of succession itself and the efficiency with which it is accomplished. In some cases, a successor’s entry into the business is a smooth progression, extending from the time he/she leaves full time education to work on the farm to the moment of legal inheritance, usually precipitated by the farmer’s death. Elsewhere succession may be so long delayed by a father unwilling to retire or cede control that the new blood effect is all the more strongly felt after inheritance has taken place.

The picture presented in Figures 7 and 8, showing that succession status is strongly associated with an expansionary and ‘professionalising’ pattern of

lifecycle effect. Recent work (Potter and Lob P ey, 1992; Potter and Lobley,

186 C. POTTER AND M. LOBLEY

Figure 7 Change in Farmed Area 1978-1993 by Succession Status*

* Successor on farm: farms where a successor aged at least 18 has been identified and is currently working on the farm. Successor not on farm: farms where a successor aged at least 18 has been identified but who is not currently working on the farm. Uncertain: farms where, despite the existence of potential successor (from immediate or extended family), succession remains unclear. Too early: farmers with children under 18 or those yet to have children. Definitely No: farmers who have ruled out succession for a variety of reasons. The association between change in holding area and succession status was significant at 5% level using chi-square.

Source: Farm Survey.

Figure 8 Investment Activity and Land Acquisition (1978-1993) by Succession Status

Note: The association between both carrying out significant investment and acquiring land and

Source: Farm Survey. succession status wassignificant at 5 % level using chi-square.

THE FARM FAMILY LIFE CYCLE 187

farm development, gives indirect support to these hypotheses. For instance, farmers with a successor present are significantly more likely than the sample average to have seen a net increase in the area farmed (54%) and an increase in the intensity with which the land is farmed (65%). Most currently farm medium or lar e holdings and over half operate a business with a turnover in excess of El00,800. These are evidently the consolidators in the middle stage of the family lifecycle, two-generation farms subject to both a succession and a new blood effect.

Figure 9 confirms this by showing the high proportion of consolidators who have a successor present on the farm. They are the continuous developers in the Sam le, the people who, havingcarned out significant land improvement in the 19 t 0s and 1970s are still energetically upgrading, intensifying and professionalising their business, invariably in partnership with a successor. Note next the expansionist profile of farmers who say it is too early to tell in Figures 7 and 8. Figure 9 shows that a very high percentage of farmers in this succession class are developers and further cross-tabulation (not shown) reveals that they are mostly young farmers who have come to or taken over management control of their farms in the last ten years (in other words, farms in the early stages of the lifecyle on which a new blood effect is likely to be much in evidence). Case study evidence suggests that it is on such farms that the most dramatic land use changes have taken place in recent years.

The trajectories of farmers with successors not on the farm is more stable than those who have definitely ruled out succession (either because they have no heirs or successors or none willing to take over the farm or have actively dissuaded them from doing so). Indeed the latter group is most likely of any in the sample to be actively disengaging or withdrawing from full time agriculture. Closer examination of these cases shows that non-successor farms tend either to be risk-taking entrepreneurs who embark on new enterprises and follow the

Figure 9 Analysis of Farm Trajectory by Succession Status

Successor Successor Uncenain Too early Definitely All on farm no! on n o farmers

Succession Status mrm

Note:

Source: Farm Survey.

The association between farm trajectory and succession status was significant at 5% level using chi-square.

188 C. POlTER AND M. LOBLEY

most expansionist trajectories of any farmers in the sample, or the least managerially dynamic eople who, lacking any incentive to ex and and

farms in retirement and old age. Relatively few (35%) have farm debt and a significant minority (46%) operate farms of 50ha or less. Interestingly, while 35% operate a business with a turnover of less than f25,000, 31% are responsible for businesses with a turnover of over f 100,000.

Farmers with successors not physically present on the farm are rather harder to characterise. A number of these absentee successors are children over 18 still in full time education, the farmer being in the middle stage of the lifecycle. But a significant percentage are actively employed off the farm, prompting the speculation that the farm business concerned is too small to provide a living for two families. Confirmation of this comes from the discovery that 30% operate a business with a low turnover and 30% an area of 50ha or less. Figures 7 and 8 provide further corroboration, showing the low levels of capital spending found on these farms and their static holding size.

Succession status is clearly a good predictor of the trajectories of farm businesses in the sample. Although indirect, the evidence presented here supports the existence of a successor and succession effect on survey farms. To the extent that they operate much more strongly on some farms than others, these go some way to explaining both the uneven pattern and very different time profiles of environmental change observed in the lkm squares. Caution is required in drawing too direct conclusions about cause and effect, however, because succession is as much an expression of a farm’s economic status as a driving force determining its success or failure. What can be said is that the succession path being followed by respondents is likely to define critical transitions when farm business restructuring, and hence environmental change, is most likely to take place. The processes of environmental change are, in a strict sense, the linked ones of succession, inheritance and retirement.

increasingly convinced t K at the family farm will die with them, run B own their

7. Conclusions The CS 1990 offers only a snapshot of change between 1984 and 1990 and in seeking to investigate the causes of change, it is essential to take a long view. An analysis of recent environmental change on a sample of farms in GB identifies a small number of high change farms responsible for the lion’s share of all recorded changes in environmental stock. While most farmers have undertaken land improvement of some sort during the last thirty years, few have embarked on significant changes to the physical layout of their farms over the period covered by the CS 1990. A closer analysis of the management profiles of survey farms distinguishes between high change farms with long histories of land improvement and intensification and those on which land use change is confined to the recent past. Equally there are farms in the sample apparently unchan ed in land use terms since the early 1960s and others where recent stability fo f lows upgrading and intensification in the middle past. Finally, some farmers, having built up their businesses in the past, are now proceeding to run them down.

Behind these different trajectories of farm business (and, by implication, environmental change) stand a number of important influences: Government policy has obviously been important in bringing about the very widespread improvement of land and intensification of production which the management histories of respondents suggest took place throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

THE FARM FAMILY LIFE CYCLE 189

But a more farm specific analysis is required to explain both the catching up process which appears to have precipitated recent land cover change on many survey farms and the trend to extensification after years of intensification evident on others. Analysis of farm survey data supports the view that a farm’s succession status is a good predictor of its trajectory over the study period, farmers recently embarking on development being most likely to be younger operators who have succeeded to or inherited their present businesses since 1978. Sustained development and expansion of the farm over long periods is strongly associated with farms on which succession is being planned and prepared for and on which the “new blood effect” is consequently less pronounced, but a “succession effect” still very strong. Farmers lacking successors and/or heirs are most likely to be disengaging or withdrawing from full time agriculture and extensification is most in evidence on farms being managed by elderly operators who lack the incentive and/or opportunity to continue developing the farm in retirement.

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