Beyond ‘Hobby Farming’: towards a typology of non-commercial farming
Résumé
In this paper we develop a typology of ‘non-commercial’ approaches to farming, based on a survey of a representative
sample of farmers in Scotland, United Kingdom. In total, 395 (16.6% of the sample) farmers indicated that they do not seek
to make a profit on their farms. We estimate that these non-commercial approaches to farming are utilised on at least 13%
of agricultural land in Scotland. As such, non-commercial farming (NCF) is not a marginal practice, nor are NCF limited
to small-scale ‘hobby’ farms: NCF exist across the scale of agricultural holding sizes and are operated by a wide range of
socio-demographic cohorts. We identify 6 types of NCF: agricultural residences, specialist smallholdings, horsiculture hold-
ings, mixed smallholdings, amenity mixed farms, and large farms or estates. These types were differentiated primarily by
the scale of farm size, presence of diversification activities and types of animal present. The analysis demonstrates a number
of emergent patterns of land management: de facto land abandonment, transition towards ‘horsiculture’, and management
differences between retiring and new entrant NCF. We argue that the types identified reflect a number of intersecting issues
in contemporary agrarian transitions, particularly the aging farmer population; generational renewal; and gendered implications of agricultural restructuring.
Domaines
Agriculture, économie et politiqueOrigine | Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte |
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