No abstract

The Farm Diversification Grant Scheme, introduced in the United Kingdom in 1988, encourages farmers to diversify their business activities on the farm. In this paper, the Scheme is described and both the ‘farm’ and ‘farmer’ characteristics of a sample of ‘adopters’ and ‘nonadopters’ in England and Wales are examined as well as the reasons for adoption and nonadoption. The results indicate that adopters are drawn from larger farms, those with higher incomes and levels of borrowing, the younger, better educated farmers, and from farms where spouses are more actively involved in developing the business. Considerable resistance towards diversification was found among nonadopters, who have still to be convinced of the financial viability of this type of business development; to many, it is just not farming.

The contemporary regional development of agriculture is commonly interpreted as a variable spatial response to exogenous pressures exerted by the globalisation of the farm sector. However, farm families and networks of institutions in interaction have the capacity to generate endogenous processes in regional agricultural development. This interpretation is explored in the context of farm diversi®cation (alternative farm enterprises ± AFE) in ®ve lagging regions of the European Union ± West of Ireland, Highlands of Scotland, northern Pennines of England, Massif Central of France, and West-Central Greece. The varying regional development of farm diversi®cation is explored through an analysis of`paths of farm business development', institutional thickness' and the relationship between farm families and networked institutions. The analysis identi®es a selective failure of`functional connectivity' between farm families involved in endogenous agricultural development and regional institutional networks for rural development.

No abstract

No abstract