Enabling change in family farm businesses

The central argument of the thesis is that as the dominant economic and social structure in advanced industrialized agriculture, the family farm business is central to enabling change in rural Australia. A deep understanding of the family farm business — its components and their interactions — is critical to designing mechanisms for enabling change in Australian agriculture. The process of enabling change needs to address the needs of the right people, at the right time. A service brokering model — which incorporates this approach — is proposed as an alternative to the current 'product-push' model of extension in Australia. The thesis is presented as a series of selected research papers, published over several years, and which have a common proposition: that understanding the social dynamics of the family farm business is core to enabling change in Australian agriculture. In addition to a general introduction to enabling change in family farm businesses, the papers address the following topics: • Identification of the characteristics of family farm businesses as the dominant structural unit in Australian agriculture (Paper I) • A review of the role and needs of women in family farm businesses in Australia (Paper 2) • Research on the role of agribusiness in family farm decision making (Paper 3) • An assessment of the barriers to farm diversification in regional Tasmania (Paper 4) • A review of research on agricultural extension, learning and change (Paper 5) • Identification of effective processes for ensuring the content of learning activities for family farm businesses is relevant to their changing needs (Paper 6) • The case for meeting the needs of family farm businesses through training brokerage (Paper 7) Across the papers, a conceptual framework to assist in the design of programmes aimed at enabling change in family farm businesses in Australia is presented. This model conceives family farm business behaviour as the outcome of the interactions between the family, the natural resources which are farmed, and the farm business, all within a broader social, economic and political context. The thesis presents an alternate extension model to the current 'product-push' model. The service broker concept addresses the provision of extension services in agriculture by focusing on the needs of family farm businesses. A case is made for agencies to act as 'brokers' between family farm businesses and the wide range of services available to address their needs. Such an approach, coordinated at a regional level, has the potential to deliver a major breakthrough in the rate of improvement in the sustainability of our family farm businesses, our rural industries and rural and regional Australia