**1. Introduction**

282 Sociological Landscape – Theories, Realities and Trends

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Agriculture and farming has changed dramatically during the past 30 years, from farmers being a social group enjoying political, economic and societal support to the current situation where farmers struggle to find legitimacy for a continued production. Norwegian family farming has mainly been organised as a relation between farm (unit of production) and the household (the family) (Blekesaune, 1996a). Research on family farming has focused upon structural changes, following economic and political trends in modern society (Buttel et al., 1990). Recurring questions have been: How can family farming as an institution survive when industry in general is capitalised? (Friedmann, 1978a; 1978b; Mann & Dickinson, 1978): When will family farming be subsumed to the interests of big agribusiness enterprises? (Friedland, 1984; Newby, 1978). Consideration of such matters has been grounded in structural theories of political economy and political sociology (Buttel et al., 1990). Farmers' own will and motivation have been of marginal interest in these studies (Johnsen, 2003). This does not mean that micro-sociological studies have been absent, but they have been mainly concentrated to inter-human relations such as changing gender patterns in agriculture (e.g. Almås, 1983; Brandth, 2002). One underlying questions of this chapter deals with classical concerns, such as: Why does family farming still exist? Agriculture has clearly been rationalised since the 1950s, but households based production still dominate in Norwegian agriculture.

This chapter focuses upon the future prospects of Norwegian farms, paying special attention to the typical family farms and farmers in Norway. Norwegian farmers share the experience of most farmers in the world that farm economic output is decreasing. As a result, the number of farm units is also decreasing; remaining farms are increasing in size, both in productive area and livestock numbers.

Family farming is still the most common way of organizing agricultural production in Norway, but the content of actual participation in agricultural production has changed. From occupying extended families in production, the majority of farms are hardly able to support one person on farm income (Almås & Haugen 1991; Bjørkhaug & Blekesaune 2008; Blekesaune, 1996a). From the 1980s, part-time farming has become the dominant type of strategy among Norwegian farmers, a strategy where the farmer or spouse, or both,

Exploring the Sociology of Agriculture:

enterprises.

Family Farmers in Norway – Future or Past Food Producers? 285

slower and more uneven capitalist development than other branches of industry. Newby (1978) and later de Janvry (1980) and Friedland, Barton and Thomas (1981) argued that capitalist development in Western agriculture will continue (Buttel et al., 1990:79-80). That Marx's predictions were not fulfilled could be, according to Newby (1983), Marx's inappropriate case study, England, where the present agricultural feudal structure collapsed for the benefit of family farming. Blekesaune (1996b) adds to this that farmers also no longer needed to produce a surplus or ground rent and as such could compete with capitalist

Max Weber, in his book *The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism* (1904), developed a wider concept of capitalism connected to the rationalisation of society. In Weber's work, capitalisation occurs when production is divided from the household economy to bring about greater efficiency of production. This is an interesting scenario for theorising the family farm, where the household and production are intrinsically linked, presenting a special case in terms of modern conceptualisations of capitalist production under increasingly neoliberal forms of governance. In *Die Verhältnisse der Landarbeiter im ostelbischen Deutschland* (1892), Weber compared the agricultural conditions on two sides of the river Elbe (see Blekesaune, 1996b). From this work, he concluded that the commercialisation of agriculture would eventually lead to the increasing use of wage earning workers, and over time, conditions would worsen for land workers due to bad contracts and so forth. However, he added that the value of being an independent farmer would overcome some of the economic concerns, and this could keep people in farming. Critics of Weber's explanations refer to a proletarian false consciousness as a reason for such expressions (e.g. Mann, 1990). Previous research do however support a Weberian suspicion that there is much more than economic rationality that keeps people in farming, particularly as economically, farming is not always profitable (Bjørkhaug, 2006). Many farmers value the independent lifestyle of farming and often cite this as a motivation for staying in farming,

Drawing upon the Marxist tradition, some prominent figures developed theories on the political economy of agriculture. In the late 19th century Russia, Lenin shared Marx's concern about the elimination of family farming in e.g. *The Development of Capitalism in Russia* (Lenin, 1899)*.* Based on analysis of American agricultural census data between 1900 and 1910 Lenin (1915*)*, found an occurring dualism in agriculture. That is, that the capitalist prospered on behalf of the proletarians. In Russia, Lenin identified three strata among the peasantry: The Kulaks, who were the richer group, the middle peasants and on the bottom of the hierarchy, the poor peasants. Lenin argued that this structure was polarising into a dualistic structure: The Kulaks into a rural bourgeoisie hiring wage labourers and the poor

Another important classic who contributed to the new sociology of agriculture was Karl Kautsky who also was influenced by Marx. In his major work on agriculture, *Die Agrarfrage (*1899), Kautsky did not find support for the hypothesis that family farming would be out phased. Kautsky therefore questioned the existence of a tendency towards a large-scale wage labour production in the Western Europe. Instead, he found that family farming was increasing its influence in German agriculture, and he changed his question to *why*. Kautsky argued that the development of a more industrialised form of agriculture, coupled with the availability of cheap grain for import, made European peasants change their production into

despite low economic return for goods produced on the farm.

peasants becoming the rural proletariat.

combine farming with off-farm work. Part-time farming is a stable strategy on farms that need off-farm income, due to inadequate income from full time farming (Blekesaune, 1996a:49). While pluriactivity, or part-time farming, can be seen as a strategy or movement away from farming, pluriactivity might also be a factor that keeps people on the land, reduces the decline in numbers of farms and strengthens the basis of local services (Kinsella et al., 2000).

In this chapter, household strategy is used as the unit of analysis to help understand the general process of agricultural change. The argument of a survival or adaptation strategy in farming is built on a model including reproduction of capital like investments in the farm, share of family income derived from the farm and household members adaptation to the labour market outside the farm. Those households that may sustain in the future are those that are able to increase production on their farms (Blekesaune, 1996a:50). In this chapter farmers' adaptations are explored and with that the future prospects of family farming; What is the reality of family farming in Norway?; Who are the family farmers?; How do the farmers view the future? Will they continue to develop their farms?; The chapter bases its analysis on empirical survey data of Norwegian farmers collected in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010.
