Who are our farming families?
Project Dates
October 2024 - March 2026
Funder
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Project Summary
The overarching aim of this study is to generate new substantive knowledge about farming families in England and Wales, identify distinct sub-groups regarding farmers, farm households and farm business characteristics, and subsequently identify patterns in policy engagement and health vulnerabilities.
This aim will be achieved by utilising the Administrative Data | Agricultural Research Collection (AD|ARC) datasets for England and Wales, with additional linkages for Wales to include individual health records.
This project aims to explore the following research questions:
- What are the socio-demographic, economic and business characteristics of farm households?
- To what extent are farm household characteristics specific to the farming community or reflective of rural communities in general?
- What distinct farming household subgroups can be identified, based on farmer, farm household, and farm business characteristics? What kind of farming-household typology, emerges from this subgroup analysis?
- Does farmer engagement with voluntary farm support schemes vary according to sub-group?
- Do the health characteristics of farmers and farming households vary according to sub-groups?
Methodology
Using the AD|ARC dataset I will use a mostly descriptive approach to describe farm households in England and Wales. This will be in terms of characteristics for:
- farmers (e.g. farmer age, gender, ethnicity, education)
- farm households (e.g. household members age, gender, ethnicity, education, employment, individual income, total household income, household composition, number who work on and off the farm)
- farm businesses (e.g. number of farmers and non-farmers, employed workers, agricultural training, farm activity, area of land, total subsidy payment).
Through statistical analysis and consultation with farmers, farming organisations, and policymakers, I will group farming households based on farmer, farm household and farm business characteristics to develop a new farming-household typology. Using this new typology, I will identify patterns around the take up of different agricultural support schemes and highlight gaps in the health and wellbeing of farming households. Answering questions such as:
- What is the relationship between farming-household types and the prevalence of long-term health problems or disability?
- Is disproportionately low turn-over within sub-groups predictive of lower general health?
- Is recorded mental health more common within certain subgroups?
Outputs
A blog post on the project can be found here.
A link to the funder's project page can be found here.
Research Team
Dr Claire Hargreaves (staff page)
Dr Paul Caskie (Mentor)
Professor Karen Broadhurst (Mentor)
External Collaborators
Agri-Food & Biosciences Institute
