Aligning the Farming Habitus with Generational Renewal in Agriculture Policy

Limited uptake of financial incentives, designed to confront global trends of an ageing farming population and low levels of land mobility (i.e. transfer of land from one farmer to another, or from one generation to the next), reveal resistance or at best ambivalence, amongst farmers towards altering existing farm management and ownership structures in later life. This study draws on Bourdieu’s notion of habitus (i.e. the set of dispositions or learned behaviours which provides individuals with a sense of how to act and respond in the course of their daily lives) to help uncover the senior generation’s deeply embedded views towards succession and retirement, and the changes they perceive will occur upon their engagement in the process.

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