The aim of this study was to explore agrarian change and farm household strategies in Sweden in order to better understand the current transformations in farming as a basis for a future oriented analysis. How do farmers respond to various challenges? Who will be farming in the future?
Farmers in northern Europe face many immediate challenges. Only in Sweden, a third of the farms have disappeared over the last 25 years. In the long term however, with a foreseen global food shortage, the high productive capacity of Nordic agriculture may become a key resource.
We returned to a unique material of 250 interviews with farm households in three different study areas in Sweden, carried out in 1992, to track the changes they have gone through. We revisited and interviewed a selection of these farm households and explored their perceptions and analysed key themes:
- the trajectories of agrarian change,
- the livelihoods and pluriactivity of the farm households,
- the negotiations of gender relations,
- uncertainties and risks ? how farmers relate to the future.
The project results were published in a popular scientific project report and discussed with stakeholders across Sweden in May 2020. Several academic publications are planned for 2021.
Project report
Questions posed at stakeholder meeting and responses from the researchers
