Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
employment and urban social networks. In all three cases, these supporting technologies
were important to the development of lifestyle farming but it is the new ways of thinking
about the countryside, and associated beliefs and values, which are driving the transition.
Is lifestyle farming anchoring?
Lifestyle farming is becoming a mainstream activity in the regions studied, in the sense that
those living on farms or providing services within the agricultural sector will be aware of it.
Lifestyle farming impacts economically, in terms of the capital available and used within
the countryside, rather than productively (in terms of agricultural commodities produced). It
also has a social impact on rural communities. The practice of lifestyle farming is
sufficiently diverse that it is difficult to detect specific changes which reflect mainstreaming
- these would more likely reflect societal trends generally (for specific types of lifestyle
activities, for example keeping a few chickens, wearing specific clothing, horse riding) than
trends that would push the lifestyle farmers closer to conventional farming.
As explained in Darnhofer (this volume), 'anchoring' refers to emerging forms of
linking between the niche and the regime, while 'linking' expresses the more robust
interaction at later stages. Anchoring within the regime has been driven by two trends: (i)
the productivist quest for economies of scale and competitiveness in the global market,
which left the small-scale farms outside what is considered competitive farming and
therefore as 'surplus' farmland; and (ii) the cultural shift towards valuing leisure lifestyles
and 'green' amenity. In particular, it reflects the commodification of nature and the rural -
land is valued more highly for recreational and housing use than for agricultural production
(Phillips, 2005). The anchoring process has been achieved largely through the purchasing
power of the new lifestyle farmer managers, rather than through active lobbying by
proponents. As a niche, it did not require protection from markets; instead it could be
viewed as a product of real-estate regime access to unprotected agricultural land markets.
Lifestyle farming has anchored into the agricultural regime in several ways. Lifestyle
farmers purchase land from the same vendors, and sometimes inputs from the same
suppliers, as commercial farmers. This is evidence of economic institutional anchoring:
both types in recent years have re-oriented their activities to be able to support this growing
market. In Scotland, estate agents have divided up farms for sale into residential and
commercially-scaled properties, thus enabling the creation of more lifestyle-scaled units.
Input suppliers have developed products specifically for the (wealthy) lifestyle markets:
smaller scale machinery and quantities of seed and feed, even introducing new clothing
ranges. This is not so evident in the Portuguese and Bulgarian cases but lifestyle farmers
there are also purchasing their products and equipment in the local stores, adding to the
stores' business and supporting the diversity on offer. Lifestyle farmers do not typically
have large amounts of equipment but may considerably boost purchases of small-scale
equipment like lawnmowers and hedge trimmers. They are also more likely to make more
use of farming services (for example contractors, veterinarians) than commercial farmers,
thus providing a financial basis for on-going service provision.
There is some evidence of 'network anchoring'. Elzen
et al.
(2012) define network
anchoring as the changes that occur in the network of actors that produce, use and develop a
novelty. Lifestyle farming typically involves the engagement of new actors into the
agricultural sector, arguably forming 'new' networks. There is also some evidence that
these new actors are penetrating existing networks within the agricultural regime. For
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