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Moderated e-mail conference on small farms and food security

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Mon, 24 Oct 2016 16:48:47 +0000
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My name is Talis Tisenkopfs, I am a sociologist and researcher at the Baltic Studies Centre in Riga, Latvia. Our institute is a partner in the SALSA project.

My contribution relates to defining small farms, specificall Question 3.1.2 ("What are the most important additional criteria that should be used in such a research project? If possible, provide specific examples where you or others have used additional criteria in practice in research on small farms and share any lessons learned from using them"):

I would like to refer to the study of small farms we carried out in Latvia in 2014-2015 within the framework of the European project RETHINK (http://www.rethink-net.eu/home.html). 

There is no ‘official definition’ of small farms in Latvia; however policy makers need one for the government support programme for small farms. The governing institutions use three quantifiable criteria measured also in agricultural census: farm standard output (less than 25 000 EUR); size of the agricultural land (a fuzzy criterion as many small farms in Latvia possess relatively large farmland – 10, 15 and more hectares); and employment, expressed in agricultural labour units. 

We started the study with a workshop with representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and farmers’ organisations to inquire about their interests and expectations from our project. The stakeholders wished that the RETHINK study would come up with a more holistic definition of small farms. Therefore, we focussed the study mostly on qualitative aspects of small-scale farming, paying attention to their market, territorial and social relations. We used the concepts of resilience, prosperity and learning to understand different activities and outcomes of small farms. The results are summarised in a case based practitioner handbook “Latvijas Mazo Saimniecîbu Dzîvotspçja” (Resilience of Small Farms) published in Latvian and available at: http://www.bscresearch.lv/content/projects_files/gramata_latvijas_mazo_saimniecibu_dzivotspeja.pdf  

Several key findings might contribute to a more holistic definition of small farms. 

First, we observed that small farms follow diverse economy principles and pathways, not a purely capitalistic path. 

Second, there was no link between ‘smallness’ and ‘poverty’ and ‘exclusion’ which challenges the widespread assumption in post-communist countries that small farms are left-over from the past which should fade during modernisation of agriculture. 

Third, in many cases, small scale farming ensured decent levels of well-being, income, quality of life, self-efficacy, time-control, and life satisfaction of farmers. Prosperity construction of small farmers went far beyond merely economic aspects. 

Fourth, many small farms demonstrated surprising resilience and, in the meantime, innovativeness; both processes were related to the farmers’ active involvement in learning and social networking. 

Fifth, a notable role behind success, prosperity and resilience of small farms was played by family factors (marital ties, gender and generational relations, farm succession). 

At the final workshop we proposed an extended definition of small farms including additional criteria to the above mentioned economic ones, like: family labour; family land ownership; prosperity; well-being; resilience; knowledge and learning. Stakeholders appreciated these qualitative criteria; however they felt that further clarification and discussion was needed. 

This experience suggests that definition and criteria of small farms is an object of multiparty discussion and agreement in a given national context and they depend on the vision of small farms’ role in rural development and agri-food systems.

Talis Tisenkopfs
Baltic Studies Centre
Kokneses prospekts 26, 
Riga, 
LV 1014, 
Latvia
Internet: www.bscresearch.lv 
E-mail: talis.tisenkopfs (at) lu.lv

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