A set of variables representing farmers’ goals, the perceived barriers in achieving their goals, problems related to soil condition, and the approach for preventing waterway eutrophication were derived from content analyses, as these questions were open-ended. The responses were analysed with conventional content analysis, in which the coding categories were derived from the data . Content analysis allows the qualitative organisation of large amounts of text into a restricted number of categories , which may then be analysed using quantitative methods. The categories were retrieved iteratively; thus, the coding categories were detailed during the coding process. The codes for each category derived from the content analysis were given as 0/1; 0 indicated that the category was not mentioned in the response, and 1 indicated that it was mentioned. Thus, it was possible to observe more than one category in one response. A more detailed description of the content analysis is provided in Appendix 3. The largest proportion of farms in Eastern Finland were categorised as persistent , followedsa by adaptable , non-resilient ,hydroponic grow system and transformable farms. In Table 2, we summarise the farm profiles according to the resilience typology in terms of the background variables.
The distributions upon which the profiling is based, along with test results for the statistically significant deviations of the distribution amongst the entire survey population, are provided in Appendix 2. The main strategy of the persistent farms can be characterised as satisficing: doing the things that have been done previously without major attempts for development, let alone trying out new things. These farms were small farms typically producing cereals or other crops . Farmers on these farms most often received less than 50% of their total income from farming . However, the farmers were relatively satisfied with the profitability of farming. Environmental aspects did not play a major role in this group, and the persistent farmers were less likely than average to have signed into any of the subsidy schemes observed here. Their farming goals were related to the economy, but also personal goals, such as living on the farm, or a general surrender mentality in which there were no longer any grand goals identified, were relatively common in this group. The farmers of these farms typically had their educational background from vocational schools, and relatively many of these farmers lived alone and did not have children. In sum, the robustness of the persistent farmers arose from them not being dependent on agricultural income, which also meant that they did not have major ambitions for the farm development neither in terms of economy nor the environment.
Adaptable farms aimed at continuous development of the farming business while having a good fit with the existing food regime. The farm size was the largest in this group, as these farms had also previously proceeded on the growth track. Half of the adaptable farms practiced animal husbandry—mostly dairy or cattle; garden crops were also a typical production line. Farming was an important source of income for the adaptable farms, typically constituting 75–100% of their total income. On over half of the farms, the income from farming was more than 15,000 EUR. These farmers perceived the profitability of farming most positively. Farmers in this group were younger than average, and they farmed typically with a spouse and had children.Almost all adaptable farmers identified economic goals, but also social goals such as continuity over generations, sustainability, and contribution to food provision within the society were prevalent. Environmental management played an important role in this group. Larger than average share of farmers managed wetlands and semi-natural habitats on their land. They described the soil condition as good, indicating a tendency for active soil management. These farms had most often opted into the agrienvironmental scheme, which the farmers also perceived as effective. Other subsidy schemes, including the organic scheme, extension support and investment support, were relatively widely utilised by the adaptable farms. The group was by and large characterised by a commitment to farming as a source of livelihood, and a focus on operating by the rules of the regime. To make a living from farming, they had enlarged their farming business in order to keep up with the cost-price squeeze, as well as committed to agri-environmental management on various fronts.
Transformable farms also held a development strategy. However, instead of developing the existing business, they were looking for a new path for their farm-based ventures. Transformable farms were large, and they represented all lines of production, but special crops and animal husbandry other than cattle and dairy were over represented within this group. Farmers in this group were young, had the highest education level of all groups and typically had a spouse but farmed alone. For these farms, farming was either the primary source of income or constituted less than 50% of income. Most transformable farmers evaluated profitability as weak, and they were driven by a search for better profitability. However, such a search had been ongoing in the past as well, as these farms had diversified or applied major changes to farm operations also in the past, indicating the difficulty to find a profitable direction fitting the goals of the farmer. These goals were related not only to the economic performance, as a substantial proportion of transformable farmers also mentioned social goals such as sustainability. Indeed, the environmental aspects played the biggest role in this group, encompassing management of soil condition and nutrients, identification of wetlands and management of semi-natural habitats, important for agricultural biodiversity. Transformable farmers were the most active in utilising the available subsidy measures. Transformable farms encompassed the largest share of farms that also practiced upgrading of products by on-farm processing instead of only producing raw material. In short, transformable farms were trying to do things differently.
The need for transformation stemmed from the efforts to increase the profitability of farming, to make farming a full-time profession, and to reconcile economic aspects with environmental ones. Their perceived barriers were mostly related to markets but also to the farm and its management, entailing issues such as lack of time due to being employed at the farm only part-time or lack of fields. Non-resilient farmers—who form a strikingly high proportion of all farmers—faced a dead-end in terms of agriculture and had the aim of running down the farming business altogether. Non-resilient farmers had a low education level, and they were the oldest in all groups. Even though they were likely to have children, they did not have successors interested in taking over the farm, and thus they aimed at retirement, afforesting, or leasing the fields. The farms were small, and they typically farmed other crops or were in other production. The farmers were mostly part-time farmers, with agriculture constituting less than 50% of their total income, and the farming income was less than 15,000 EUR in 71% of cases. Over half of these farmers had proceeded on a business-as usual track previously, and a substantial proportion had downsized their production in the past. Most non-resilient farms assessed the profitability of farming as weak. Although the majority held economic goals, their frequency was clearly lower than in other groups, and the largest share of farmers in this group identified personal goals such as retirement or maintenance of good health. On the barrier side, social and personal barriers prevailed. Social barriers typically included the lack of a successor or a buyer, and personal barriers included high age and poor health. The soil condition was perceived as weaker in comparison with other groups, and the identified problems in soil condition were often related to the pH status of the fields and lack of nutrients. At the same time,indoor garden even though these farmers felt that the fields suffered from a lack of nutrients, they also mitigated waterway eutrophication by reducing input use.
Non-resilient farmers were most likely to have opted out of the agri-environmental scheme, and those enrolled frequently cited that the scheme did not have any effects whatsoever. These farmers were least likely to be organic farmers and to have received extension support or investment support. With regression analysis, we took a closer look at the predictive power of the explanatory variables in comparison with the general descriptions based on the distributions of the variables. The results of the regression analysis are presented in Table 3, including the statistical significance and odds ratios. When the value of the odds ratio is larger than 1, it implies a positive effect, while a value smaller than 1 implies a negative effect. The model was statistically significant. In the stepwise regression, we included seven explanatory variables that demonstrated the strongest predictive power to classify farms into the resilience groups: farmer age, farmer’s assessment of the farm’s profitability, farm size, education, use of subsidised extension services, adoption and perceived effectiveness of agri-environmental subsidies, and whether the farmer had children. In comparison with the non-resilient farm group, a farm was more likely to end up in the persistent group when the farmer had no children, had a high education level , assessed the profitability of farming as moderate or good instead of weak, and was young. In a similar comparison, the adaptable farm group was characterised by a high education level, positive assessment of the farm’s profitability, large farm size, and young age of the farmer. The farmers on adaptable farms were also likely to have indicated that they had implemented some measures earlier than planned because of the agri-environmental subsidies . Similarly, farmers on transformable farms were young, had a high education level, had used subsidised extension services, and had large farms. Farmers on transformable farms were more likely to have adopted agri-environmental subsidies, which also had an effect on farm management in comparison with the subsidies having no effects. From our data, we have identified four different resilience strategies and differing capacities giving rise to these strategies. The central differences between these strategies lie within their relationship with the contemporary food regime and the related capacities for transformation.
The persistent and adaptable farmers stick to the logic of the dominant regime, while the transformable and non-resilient farmers are looking to shift towards new stability domains outside the dominant regime. This intent is driven by financial concerns: both the transformable and non-resilient farmers are not satisfied with the financial performance of their farms. However, the conclusion drawn differs between these two groups. The non-resilient farms do not have the resources necessary for transformation: they are old, their farms are rather small, they do not have successors, and their education level is low; thus, exiting farming altogether is a consistent intent. The transformable farmers represent the opposite in almost all respects: they are young, their farms are large, they are well-educated and development oriented. The transformable farmers hold latent potential to act as change agents in sustainability transition, but this potential remains so far largely unfulfilled. This is due to the tightness of the contemporary regime: the transformable farmers aim at playing by new rules that do not yet exist. Their operations are not very well aligned with the commercial logic of the dominant regime, yet they have utilised the agricultural policies to the fullest extent; in this sense, they are also confined by the regime. The previous attempts of these farms of doing things differently suggests that finding a profitable direction is a struggle, highlighting the rigidity of the current regime . In this sense, resilience at the farm level is significantly more challenging to achieve by creating entirely new and profitable paths than by adapting to the current macro structure . Adapting to the current macro structure, i.e., the regime logics, is what the persistent and adaptable farmers were doing. Apart from being relatively content with what the regime has to offer in terms of profitability of farming, the strategies of the persistent and adaptable farms were quite different. The persistent strategy was enabled by non-agricultural income. Because of not being dependent on agricultural income, these farmers are relatively robust and possibly able to persist considerable hardships in their operational environment, but for the very same reason, their incentives to continue farming might also be easily lost.