Loading...
The Potential for Joint Farming Ventures in Irish Agriculture: A Sociological Review
Citations
Altmetric:
Date
09/04/2016
Collections
Files
Loading...
euco-2016-0003.pdf
Adobe PDF, 122.05 KB
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Citation
Peter Cush, Áine Macken-Walsh. The Potential for Joint Farming Ventures in Irish Agriculture: A Sociological Review. European Countryside, 2016, 8(1), 33–48, DOI: 10.1515/euco-2016-0003
Abstract
Joint farming ventures (JFVs) are promoted within Irish and EU policy discourses as
strategies that can enhance the economic and social sustainability of family farming.
Research has shown that JFVs, including arrangements such as farm partnerships,
contract rearing and share farming, can potentially enable farmers to work
cooperatively to improve farm productivity, reduce working hours, facilitate
succession, develop skills and improve relationships within the farm household. In
the context of increasing policy promotion of JFVs, there is a need to make some
attempt at understanding the macro socio-cultural disposition of family farming to
cooperation. Reviewing sociological studies of agricultural cooperation and taking
a specific focus on the Irish contextual backdrop, this paper draws the reader’s
attention to the importance of historical legacy, pragmatic economic and social
concerns, communicative norms, inter-personal relationships, individualism and,
policy and extension stimuli, all of which shape farmers’ dispositions to cooperation
and to JFVs specifically.