A Recruitment Crisis in Agriculture? A Reply to Heike Fischer and Rob J.F. Burton's Understanding Farm Succession as Socially Constructed Endogenous Cycles

Abstract

This short article responds to Fischer and Burton's article, ‘Understanding farm succession as socially constructed endogenous cycles’, featured in the last issue of Sociologia Ruralis. Broadly the article commends the concept of ‘socially constructed endogenous cycles’ as a way of conceptualising successor creation, but challenges some of Fischer and Burton's claims, with the aim of stimulating further discussion and research into intergenerational farm transfer. Drawing on a range of empirical research, the article explores the reality of the ‘recruitment crisis’ that Fischer and Burton suggest is occurring, and subsequently asks, is there an optimum level of familial succession? The article continues by exploring some of the other claims made by Fischer and Burton, including the impact of mechanisation on farm children's involvement in farm work, and challenges their suggestion that farmers are currently marginalised in society.