**5. Summarising trends in Norwegian family farming**

Norwegian agriculture has faced major structural changes in the statistical history since 1969. Close to 70 percent of the farm units have closed down. Remaining farms are getting bigger, on either bought, but most often rented neighbouring farm land. There has been an increase in big farms (relatively in a Norwegian context), and a decrease in small farms, but the middle size segment is still the dominating farm group.

Norwegian farms are operated by mostly male heads that on average are getting older. Farmers are gradually losing their farming identity and more and more farmers find their occupational identity in off-farm work. Still, farming in Norway is based on family involvement and wife/husband/partner participates in farm work on most farms. A small majority of farmers expect family succession to take place in the future. The Norwegian agricultural system is still based on family farming system.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century Norwegian farmers have experienced increased revenue from agricultural production. The subjective experience of the situation is fewer farmers reporting on negative economic development throughout the decade. This could also reflect that many farmers in the red left the statistics when closing down the farm production.

The income pattern in Norwegian farming households also shows a critical pattern of offfarm income dominating the economic situation on many farms. 38 percent of Norwegian farmers collect a majority (more than 50 percent) of their household income from farming. This pattern is even enhanced by the finding that one out of two farmers report that farm income constitute less than 25 percent of their household income. This is a critical negative development in Norwegian agriculture.

Future agriculture in Norway is depending on farmers' interest in developing and investing in farming. The willingness to invest has increased slightly in 2002, but there is still a minority of farmers that plan to invest in their farms in the near future.

Exploring the Sociology of Agriculture:

no relevance.

have taken place in industry over the past centuries.

is then more family oriented and lesser production oriented.

Family Farmers in Norway – Future or Past Food Producers? 301

also influenced and challenged by global trade agreements and other major changes that

Capitalism will not be the immediate future structure of Norwegian agriculture. Analysis in this chapter have shown that the family structure is strongly valued and one could use the explanatory force of Chayanov (1986) from his early text of the 20th century; "Reproduction of the family farm is a sufficient goal". Handing the farm over to a new generation of family members is a very strong incentive for investing in and developing Norwegian farms. There are however too many farmers giving up farming to conclude that economic returns are of

But, when structural theories alone fail to explain the development of Norwegian family farming, answers should be sought within other theoretical tools. Branches of contemporary sociology have been more interested in trying to understand the interrelationship between structural opportunities and constraints and the actors will and ability to control their own choices, with modern classics such as Bourdieu and Giddens as frontiers. The former

The structuring aspect of the farmers' reality is for many given through inheritance of the farm in kinship. Analyses in this chapter encourage a closer perspective on kinship relations in the continuation of farming. There is a strong connection between future prospects and prospects of a family successor. The family connection to farms as places and property has also previously been found to be a constraint for sales of farm properties, including those that have closed production (e.g. Flemsæter, 2009). Families keep the properties as a source of maintenance of traditions and emotions. Having future successors in sight encourage development of the farm as a productive unit also. It is however noteworthy that maintaining and developing farms for future successors are not necessarily taking place when the successor is ready to take over, rather it takes place when the transferor has entered agriculture and has started his or her own family reproduction. The choice and motivation for upgrading the farm

Another aspect of family farming is the economic aspect. The family farm organisation is a household economic model unlike a more capitalistic oriented business model. Historically Norwegian farms did not give sufficient income to the farming families. Household income was supplemented through other labour, either based on own resources in forest and outfields/waters or in income generating work off farm for both farmer and family members. Pluriactivity has been a stable strategy, and still is on many farms. The relative increase in off farm income is now working as a disincentive to invest in farming activities. Almås (1984) stated that survival of Norwegian family farming depends on reproduction of an enlarged scale of agricultural production to keep up with development. Being able to gain substantial economic returns are of crucial importance for being able to invest in the farm. But those should be earned from the farm. Analysis in this chapter has however shown that money from off-farm work will not be re-allocated to farming when off-farm income is dominating the structure of household income. In this perspective those farmers that eventually leave farming are not outcompeted by capitalistic production out of their control, but by their own adaptations to income generating activities outside the farm.

The sociology of agriculture must challenge the dichotomies of structural and actor oriented social science approaches to the study of agricultural restructuring, family farming, and

emphasising structure, while the latter the individual to a slightly stronger degree.

Analysis of whom the future farmers in Norway might be, show that it is (relatively) younger farmers on the larger farms that are most interested in investing in their farms (the will to invest decreases with age). The willingness to invest in farming must be viewed in the contexts of the economic situation at the farm. High income from farming increases the willingness to invest. On the other hand, does high dependence on off-farm income take away the interest in farm investments.

Having family successors in sight strongly correlates with willingness to invest in the farm. This shows that "The Family Farm" has a very strong value in the Norwegian farming system. If not, one could expect that a market value of farm properties could encourage farmer's interest in developing their farms. Such market economic considerations do not seem to be widespread among Norwegian farmers. This is of course also limited by farm property regulations.
