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a b s t r a c tNorway represents one of the last countries in Europe where the structural development of agriculture is strongly state regulated through legislation and economic instruments. The result is an agriculture dominated by very small farms while, in most of the rest of Europe, farming has been rationalised into much larger units e thus improving the structural efficiency of agriculture. This study looks at how and why the pattern of farmland control (ownership and renting) in Norway has changed over the last fifty years. Using a study of agricultural policy documents, an investigation of statistics on farmland control changes, and a qualitative survey, we explore the considerable growth in the number of partly rented farms over this period. We suggest that change is attributable to three key factors: techno-economic development leading to a growing need for economies of scale, social norms curbing the transfer of farm properties outside of the family, and policy and legal instruments reducing the extent of property transfer. In addition, the weakening of compensation to smaller farmers since the 1990s has encouraged many to leave agriculture and made more rental land available e ultimately leading to a rapid shift from traditional owner occupation to a predominantly rented land system.

The traditional way of organising agricultural production in Norway has been through family farming. A family farm is defined by the ownership of the farm through kinship over a number of generations. This article examines structural changes on Norwegian family farms based on the impact of increased competition and falling prices and subsidies. The strategy traditionally employed has been to increase total household income on the farm through working off-farm. We map changes in income allocation and work strategies on Norwegian family farms over time, changes in income allocation and work strategies among men and women on family farms over time and we show income allocation and work strategies among men and women as farmers and as farmers' spouses. Through a quantitative analysis of data on Norwegian farmers from 1987 until 2004, we show that there are continuing changes in work and income allocation on Norwegian farms. The trend is a higher dependence on off-farm income. However, this development is not only explained by more off-farm work by farmerswhich is an indication of lower value of farm work itself -but to a large degree this is a result of the increasing off-farm work of farm women. While at the same time more women are entering agriculture as farmers, we find clear evidence of differences in the organisation of farms operated by men and women. While male farmers are professionalising as 'one-man farmers,' female farmers to a larger degree depend (voluntarily or not) on their partner's assistance in the farm work.