Rural entrepreneurs working for long-term sustainability

Farmers are much more than just producers of raw materials and conservationists. They play a significant role in rural development and are also extremely entrepreneurial,” says Cederholm Björklund. She believes they should be included in entrepreneurship research.

She is an economist, trained in strategic management and spent 12 years building up a large farm, including a dairy and restaurant on the farm. Subsequently, she was managing director of a farming company. With a background in agricultural development, Jennie Cederholm Björklund’s research is driven by how to create a sustainable countryside – to avoid depopulation.

– My doctoral thesis is about entrepreneurship in agriculture and how it creates value for sustainable rural development,” she says.

To understand farmers’ entrepreneurship, you need to understand the so-called embeddedness, says Jennie Cederholm Björklund. Being embedded in the community means caring about the place and the people who live there. Farmers make their decisions on this basis.

– They help, take responsibility and go the extra mile for the well-being of the community. But they are also keen to behave and protect their family’s reputation. The decisions taken are not always economically advantageous, but usually good for the family and the community.

Cederholm Björklund has conducted several case studies on entrepreneurship in agriculture. She has conducted in-depth interviews with farmers and managers in the support system, as well as numerous observations. During the drought of summer 2018, she had the opportunity to interview farmers under great pressure.

– Many were desperate – food for the animals was running out and the economy was collapsing. I could study how they behaved, thought and made decisions.

Her thesis shows that farmers are highly entrepreneurial based on the criteria of risk-taking, innovative and proactive.

– They always risk their family’s finances and they are forced to develop things according to what happens. One day there is a lot of snow, the next day there is a lot of water to consider. They have to deal with different types of soil and different conditions for using the land. Farmers adapt their practices to circumstances that are not always under their control. They innovate on a daily basis.

Being proactive, i.e. being prepared for both predictable and unpredictable events, is also part of farming.

– Floods, escaped animals or a new disease – they are prepared for all of these. The idea that farmers are not entrepreneurial is completely wrong. It is high time that they become part of entrepreneurship research,” says Jennie Cederholm Björklund.

During the 2018 drought, many forests around the country were ravaged by fires. The usual social functions were inadequate. Even though the farmers were facing a fodder crisis and other problems on their farms, they left it behind and instead helped to put out fires using their tractors and fertilizer barrels. It was a job from which they did not earn any money.

– From a business perspective, farmers should have stayed at home on the farm and taken care of their business and their animals. But embeddedness has a huge impact on their decisions.

It is about relationships with the environment. When students need to be transported on flatbed trucks, a new soccer field needs to be built or snow needs to be shoveled, farmers are there to help.

– They don’t get rich like other entrepreneurs, but their efforts create incredible value and contribute to rural development,” says Jennie Cederholm Björklund.

By embedding themselves in their own and nearby villages – and the people who live there – farmers also enable entrepreneurship across the whole community. Goods and services are frequently exchanged and encourage entrepreneurship.

– If I run a Bed & Breakfast with surrounding meadows, the farmer provides land and lets his animals graze there. It adds value to the experience and I get more guests. They constantly enable other entrepreneurs in the region to succeed. It is important that we see that.

To understand sustainable rural development, it is also necessary to understand how farmers view sustainability. It means something completely different for them than for traditional entrepreneurs,” says Cederholm Björklund.

– Farmers are not driven by money, attention or fame: they see their work as a way of life. Thus, they look at sustainability from an extremely long-term perspective – for generations to come.

Farmers focus on social and environmental sustainability and consider economic sustainability as long-term survival. Often they have taken over a farm and will pass it on to the next generation. They do not want to spoil the village or the environment.

– Many people I have spoken to stress that ‘we are borrowing the earth from our children’.

– As with embedding, the huge long-term sustainability has a major impact on decisions. It also creates great value for a sustainable countryside,” says Jennie Cederholm Björklund.

To create more favorable conditions for farmers as well as rural areas, Sweden has a large support system. Actors in the system include the Swedish Board of Agriculture, LRF and various advisory firms.

– The interventions intended to support farmers are based on economic growth strategies such as business models and value chains. They focus on production, efficiency, animal welfare and the environment.

However, Cederholm Björklund’s thesis shows that farmers do not experience much support from the support system.

– They see the support as an obstacle and concern rather, as they prioritize embeddedness and sustainability over economics. They are not driven and motivated by economic growth strategies, but by a sustainable village.

The support system, which is largely funded by EU grants, has also been criticized by the OECD, which considers the Swedish system to be inefficient and poorly managed. The support system is 200 years old and needs to be updated, according to Jennie Cederholm Björklund. She argues that it is necessary to recognize what motivates and influences a farmer’s decision-making and adapt support accordingly.

– During the 2018 drought, it was the support from other farmers that helped them the most. Not crisis meetings with the support system.

In her thesis, Cederholm Björklund presents a model that shows how the system can be improved, innovation created and entrepreneurship encouraged in agriculture.

– Above all, the management of the supporting organizations needs to be courageous and encourage collaboration and knowledge transfer between the organizations, even though they are competitors. It is agriculture and the countryside that they will create value for.

By understanding more about entrepreneurship in agriculture, Jennie Cederholm Björklund hopes that policies and strategies will change the focus from trying to turn farmers into traditional entrepreneurs. Instead, the benefits that farmers play in rural development and for other entrepreneurs in the local area should be seen.

– It is easy to look only at the entrepreneur rather than at entrepreneurship and the contribution to society. The village and entrepreneurship develop in a system, it is important to understand the whole.

– EU money could be better spent. Then we wouldn’t have to see farms closed down and rural areas depopulated at the same rate as today,” says Jennie Cederholm Björklund.

Contact jennie.cederholm@hushallningssallskapet.se
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