of the European league table, lagging behind England where 14% of women were identified as the primary farmer. The Hutton and Newcastle University study involved women and men from around Scotland. It involved a survey, focus groups and individual interviews, with more than 450 people. The research included women who were due to or had inherited farms; had left family farms to set up their own; married into farming, from farming and non-farming backgrounds; or made a career change and had decided to become farmers. Most, except the career change group, had some farming-related background. The barriers of inheritance patterns to farming According to the latest findings on the study, more than half agreed that “inheritance patterns were a barrier to women’s choices about farming careers”, with successors (those inheriting a farm) agreeing most, followed by those who left their family farm to start their own. “Women who were due to or had inherited their farms were far more likely to identify their daughters as successors, with women representing about half of the identified successors to women-run successor farms,” says Professor Sutherland. “Women raised on farms who did not inherit, but went on to establish farms of their own farm, also established more gender-balanced succession plans.” Womens’ role on the farm The study also found that of all the groups, women who were due to or had inherited their farms were most likely to be involved in operating machinery (52%), with women brought up on farms who had married farmers being the least likely (23%). According to the research, although the majority of participants in all groups agreed that it was important for women to be seen as farmers, no more than 56% of any cohort—including identified successors—saw themselves as farmers. Only 18.4% of successors identified themselves as career women. “It was encouraging that the largest group involved in the study group were those who had or were expecting to take over family farms, suggesting that rates of women farmers were increasing” adds Professor Sutherland. “However, this group was also the largest to agree that inheritance practices were a barrier to women’s choices about farming careers. “The women on the largest farms were also the least likely to identify female successors and only 39% of the women in the study identified themselves as “farmers”. So there is still some way to go in achieving egalitarian gender relations within the Scottish agricultural sector.” Focusing on larger farms Both women raised on farms who were not successors and women from non-farming backgrounds who married into farming were much less likely than successors or new generation farmers to have identified female successors. This was seen as concerning because the study respondents who married into farming were also typically located on larger, potentially more viable farms. It suggested that Scotland’s largest, potentially most profitable farms, were continuing to primarily identify men as successors. It was on the smaller, potentially less viable farms, where women were more likely to be identified as successors. More than half (51.4%) of new generation farmers, who had left a family farm to start their own, were likely to discuss decisions with their spouse, but would defer decision making to them. New entrants to farming tended to come into it later in life, with grown-up children. They had a stronger decisionmaking role, with just 32% deferring decisions to their spouse, but fewer had identified a successor. They also had far smaller farms than other groups. It is thought that this could be because they often come into farming later in life (and have missed the opportunity to socialize their children into farming) or may see farming as a vocational choice rather than an identity in which their family is embedded. Further reading The paper, Breaking Patriarchal Succession Cycles: How Land Relations Influence Women’s Roles in Farming, has been published in Rural Sociology and had funding from the Scottish Government. June 2023 15 Lee-Ann on her farm in her early days Lee-Ann this year at the Hutton
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