Intergenerational succession is understood as an integral facet of the family farm. The importance of the succession process and more specifically, successor identification, are critically discussed in the context of the widely propagated projections of global population growth and associated demands on the agricultural sector. Having established the merits of successor identification, the article then highlights the absence of the ‘potential successor’ from contemporary research and continues by offering a conceptual framework, capable of bringing this important research subject into focus as an autonomous and valuable actor, which, given the anticipated renaissance in agriculture, is perhaps now, more important than ever.

This reflective paper explores gendered experiences of fieldwork encounters with farmers. Specifically, the paper considers how the particularities of farmer interviewsincluding the geographical remoteness of many farm holdings, the strength of tradition in farm families and the male-dominated nature of the industrypose a unique and challenging prospect for the young and relatively inexperienced female researcher. Drawing on a number of the authors' own fieldwork experiences, we consider some of the ethical and safety challenges we have faced, and offer some practical strategies for addressing these. The paper also reflects on the implications of our positionalityspecifically the intersection of our age, gender and non-farming statuson our own, and participants' interview performances. Although, as we discuss, we found these aspects of our identity broadly advantageous in securing and conducting successful farmer interviews, we also recount how they invited a number of unwelcomed behaviours, and often left us vulnerable to emotional risk. In sharing such experiences, we raise a number of questions concerning the ethical responsibility of negotiating or conforming to the identities conferred on us during farmer interviews and hope to prompt further discussion around these challenges. The paper concludes that young female researchers face a number of ethical and safety challenges during fieldwork in the rural and farming context and highlights the need to consider the impact of researcher positionality on the researcher, the participant(s) and the overall research process. By stimulating such a debate, we aim to bring the issue of gendered experiences of rural research to the fore, and hope to provide some reassurance and support to others working in similar areas.

The transfer of managerial control between generations on the family farm has long been understood as a critical and often problematic phase, with implications for both the individual farm business and more broadly, the sustainability of family farming systems. Drawing on empirical data from interviews with prospective successors and farmers in Devon, England, the article provides a contemporary analysis of the transfer of managerial control on family farms. Although in line with traditional conceptualisations, findings reaffirm how many prospective successors were delegated tasks of increasing responsibility, with limited access to the higher responsibility financial management tasks, an emergent cohort of younger prospective successors enjoyed a contrasting progression towards managerial control, involving varied involvement across all aspects of farm management. With reference to late modernity and the individualisation thesis, the article explores how unconstrained by tradition the emerging cohort described a wealth of off-farm experiences, including what the article terms short-term diversions, which the analysis reveals have informed and shaped their progression towards managerial control. In view of these findings, the article offers an alternative and up-to-date conceptualisation of the transfer of managerial control in the form of the succession matrix, before considering the potential applications and some avenues for future research.

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This article considers the implications of the wider systemic shift from modernity to late modernity for the process of intergenerational farm transfer. The article argues that the shift from the collective to the individual, indicative of late modern society, is particularly pertinent in the context of intergenerational transfer, which has long been rooted in collective thinking. Drawing on the perspectives of incumbent farmers and potential successors, the article utilizes results from semistructured interviews with 29 farmers and 19 potential successors in Devon, England. Using a thematic analysis, the article provides a nuanced understanding of the impact of the systemic shift and the associated emphasis on the individual on successor identification. Although the article reaffirms understanding of successor creation as a collective process, determined by factors such as gender and birth order, it also identifies an emergent cohort of younger potential successors, for whom succession was the outcome of an evaluation of farming as a career. It concludes that, within the case study area, modernization is changing the way in which farm children are identifying themselves as "the successor." The article suggests how this increasingly judicious approach to succession leaves reproduction of the family farm increasingly vulnerable to negative externalities.