Peasantry and Entrepreneurship As Frames for Farming: Reflections on Farmers' Values and Agricultural Policy Discourses

Abstract

This article takes a frame analytic approach to the popular peasant–entrepreneur typology and focuses on the much‐studied topic of farmers' values. Peasantry is often thought to represent traditional or ‘indigenous’ style of farming, while entrepreneurship is associated with values injected and promoted by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In this article, peasantry and entrepreneurship are approached as frames for farming, i.e., social constructions that can be used to make sense of farming. The aim is to study whether farmers themselves frame farming in line with the peasant ethos and whether one can detect the impact of the policy discourses in farmers' framings. The study utilises value survey data from Finland and concludes that even though Finnish farmers' framings do not straightforwardly reflect the peasant–entrepreneur typology, they are highly compatible with the multifunctionality policy discourse. The results call for further attention to the novel framings new peasantry and ecological entrepreneurship that are compatible with the multifunctionality discourse.

Farmer autonomy and the farming self

“…To better situate a formulation of the farming self (Section 4), we describe the importance of autonomy in farming. Farmers value their independence: this has been clearly stated in many national contexts (Dessein and Nevens, 2007;Droz and Forney, 2007;Emery, 2013;Kiet€ av€ ainen, 2012;Niska et al, 2012). As a result, the independent farmer, with an emphasis on autonomy, remains a strong theme of peasant and agrarian conceptions of agriculture including for New Zealand and Switzerland.…”

Representation of Farmers’ Professional Identities in Shushtar District, Iran: A Study Based on Q-Methodology

“…(Walford, 2003;Mather, Hill, & Nijnik, 2006 ; ‫بخشد‬ ‫تحقق‬ ‫است،‬ ‫پساتولیدگرایی‬ ‫اصطالح‬ ‫درمورد‬ ‫انتقادی‬ ‫های‬ ‫بحث‬ . Wilson, 2008) ‫به‬ ‫پساتولیدگرا‬ ‫کشاورزی‬ ‫کرد‬ ‫کمک‬ (Mather et al, 2006,) (Bryant, 1999;Carter, 2001; ‫مزرعه‬ ‫های‬ ‫فعالیت‬ ‫به‬ ‫بخشی‬ ‫تنوع‬ Mikko Vesala, Peura, & McElwee, 2007;Sharpley & Vass, 2006) ‫اند.‬ ‫پرداخته‬ (Lockie, 2006) Carter, 2001;Vesala & Rantanen, 1999;Podedworna, .1998; Yakova, 2006;Laoire, 2002) ‫کسب‬ ‫دنبال‬ ‫به‬ ‫کارآفرین‬ ‫کشاورزان‬ ( Vesala & Vesala, 2010;McElwee, 2008;Stenholm & Hytti, 2014 Niska et al, 2012) ‫همکاران‬ ‫و‬ ‫نیسکا‬ ‫تحقیقات‬ ‫نتایج‬ ‫به‬ (Barnes et al, ‫همکاران‬ ‫و‬ ‫بارنز‬ ‫و‬ (Guillem et al, 2012) …”

Minimizing the ecological footprint of food: closing yield and efficiency gaps simultaneously?

“…productivity) [41]. Empirical studies of how farmers frame their own situation may not straightforwardly reflect the peasant-entrepreneur typology of current discourse but they are highly compatible with multifunctionality concepts [42 ].…”

“…Where important policy framing has been built on the expectation that closing yield gaps is the priority and that closing efficiency gaps will follow as a consequence [42 ], the evidence is mixed. An expectation of intrinsic independence of the two gaps is a safer starting point for the specific efforts needed to close the two gaps simultaneously, to the degree possible.…”