Family farm succession and agroecology? A life-history approach to young farmers’ sustainability strategies

The generational renewal in family farms represents a pressing challenge for the sustainability of family farming, and agriculture more broadly. However, very few studies have investigated whether and how farm succession stimulates more sustainable farming. We apply an agroecology lens to farm sustainability and combine life-history research with other qualitative methods to describe three family farm succession pathways and investigate how these shape the farming strategies of young farmers in Castilla y León, Spain. We show how young farmers in blueprint succession pathways are inclined to continue with – and intensify – their parents’ conventional farming strategies, assisted by farmer unions, public training, and policy subsidies. Agroecology appears instead after long disruptions in family succession as a cost-effective strategy to reinvigorate small and obsolete farms. Nonetheless, the agroecology transition is challenging, and disruptive successors have limited support from family, neighbors, farmer unions and subsidies. These findings problematize the idea that farm succession leads unequivocally to more sustainable farming, and suggest that generational renewal policies should broaden their compass to support disruptive succession processes and provide specific support for agroecological transitions.