The document discusses case studies of dairy farming in North Karelia, Finland and Sicily, Italy. It finds that dairy farmers in both regions are adapting to changes in policies and markets through strategies like flexibility, cooperation, and developing new skills. However, farmers face challenges such as market volatility and high costs. The Finnish farmers appeared more innovative and cooperative than the Sicilian farmers, who struggled more with issues like institutional fragmentation and an unsuitable Common Agricultural Policy. Understanding farmers' decision-making is key to promoting sustainable agriculture.

1. Farmers’ adaptations and strategies within conventional and alternative dairy
farming: case studies from North Karelia, Finland, and Sicily, Italy
Fulvio Rizzo
University of Eastern Finland

2.  Agricultural systems are Social-Ecological Systems (SES), which consist of the co-evolution
and interaction of a socio-economic system, and an eco-system at various levels and scales.
 A concept that may provide depiction of the multi-layered nature of rural and agricultural
change is that of a multifunctional agricultural regime, which allows for a multidimensional
coexistence of productivist and non-productivist actions (Deleuzian transitional model).
 It is necessary to understand how spatial, temporal, and cultural variation, complexity and
uncertainty are reflected both at the farm level, and at the farmers’ decision-making level.
 Against the multi-dimensional background of socio-economic, political and environmental
dynamics, adaptations and strategies increasingly appear to be very important factors in any
approach to promote the transition towards sustainable farming.
 Family farms play an important role in the European countryside, yet their number is steadily
declining. This raises the question of what conveys resilience to family farms, i.e. the ability to
persist over the long-term through buffering shocks and adapting to change.
Agricultural Systems and Resilience

3. Sketch of the debate on agricultural policy regimes from World War II to contemporary days
Oversupply, rising costs,
Environmental externalities
Neo-productivism/
Non-productivism
Entrepreneurial
Farming
Interventionism Welfare State Policy
Productivism
Capitalist farming
Multifunctional
agricultural regime
Neo-liberalism Rural development Multifunctionality
Shocks to the global
food system
Post-productivism

4. Research aims and questions
 By contributing to overcome the divisions between nature and culture, the overall aim of the research is
to both identify and contextualise practices of dairy farmers’ resilience, and how these support wider
sustainability goals
1) How dairy farmers adapt their farming practices and strategize their responses to bio-
physical/social changes (as the abolition of milk quotas, the Russian import ban, animal
diseases, droughts)?
2) How farmers modify and are modified by relations between natural and social processes?
 The research seeks to understand the interplay between the revised terms of dairy production and
farmers’ decision-making, and how such interplay reveals farmers’ resilience and, to a broader extent,
promotes agricultural sustainability.
 The operational hypothesis of the research is that local context strongly influence the variation of
relations in sustainability discourses

5. S u s t a i n a b i l i t y t r a n s i t i o n s
Normative View of Multifunctionality
Relational approach
Material structures
(bio-physical/social)
Farming culture
and knowledge
Expert knowledge
Farmers’
decision-making
(practical knowledge)
Theoretical framework
Resilience
D e l e u z i a n b e c o m i n g
Alternative
agriculture
Conventional
agriculture

6.  In the EU, the dairy sector is of significant economic, social, and territorial importance, and it accounts
for 15% of the agricultural output (2014). As well, as the leading exporter of many dairy products, the
EU is a major player in the world dairy market.
• Investigating dairy farming is very topical and timely. Along with the review of the CAP for the period
2014-2020 - which is going to affect all farming sectors - market changes (as the Russian import ban) and
specific policy changes concerning the dairy sector (the abolishment of milk quotas) are going to revise the
terms of dairy production.
• The CAP introduced milk quotas in 1984 to restrict milk supply and this policy action, along with production
subsidies paid to farmers, resulted in stable milk prices within the EU (Whetstone, 1999). Such system
provided a national quota at the Member State level, and an individual quota fixed for each producer or
purchaser, with a levy (the ‘superlevy’) payable for those who exceeded their quota (European Parliamentary
Research Service, 2015).
• On the one hand, “milk quotas have had a constraining effect on potentially more entrepreneurial or
productive farmers; on the other hand, they have supported milk production in less competitive dairy
regions” (McDonald et al., 2014, 21).
Dairy farming: changing policies, markets and structures

7.  The CAP Health Check review in 2008 resulted in the decision to abolish milk quotas,
occurred in 2015 with the goal of introducing a free market environment for milk production
across Europe.
 The changes expected will be far-reaching. Small farmers, farmers in mountain areas, or
areas with higher production costs are very likely going to suffer without the protection of
the quota system. The number of farms, and farm size distribution is expected to be
influenced, with relevant consequences for the land use, the landscape, and the environment
in rural areas dominated by dairy farming (Groeneveld et al., 2016).
 The abolition of dairy quotas in the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2015
“represents an economic but also socio-cultural disruption for a sizeable cohort of farmers,
requiring adaptation to more market-driven production strategies” (McDonald et al., 2014,
21).
 The recent Russian embargo (the EU-28 has lost almost €5 billion in agri-food exports to
Russia in the past year) has further increased market uncertainty, at least in the short term.

8. EU dairy farm numbers – range of estimates for 2020 (Source: Promar International)

9. Potential milk production increase to 2020 (million liters)
Source: Promar International

10. Methodology and data
 19 semi-structured interviews have been collected in North Karelia; Interviews have been have
undertaken with dairy farmers (conventional and alternative), as well as with key informants from
farming organizations (both advisory and lobbying), and dairy cooperatives.
 A questionnaire has been sent to 500 dairy farmers via webropol. The questionnaire includes four
sections: 1) dairy farmers’ information; 2) dairy farms’ structure; 3) dairy farmers’ strategies; 4) dairy
farmers’ perspectives on agriculture.
 The field work in Sicily started in March 2017, and it will continue in May-June 2017; at this point in
time 12 qualitative interviews have been collected.
 These data are supplemented both by reports relating to the design and implementation of dairy farming
policies in the respective case studies, and by key statistics concerning dairy production structure in
Sicily and North Karelia.

11. Study areas
Sicily
North Karelia

12.  In the regions of Southern Italy, whose underdevelopment has often been claimed as path-dependent
(see for instance Putnam 1993), multifunctional trends take place within a tension that sees on the one
hand phenomena of resilience which are based on the persistence of those traditional characteristics
that had been once considered an obstacle to modernization and the expression of an economy of
marginality (Meloni and Farinella 2013), and on the other hand negative phenomena of environmental
degradation as the exploitation of migrants in rural areas, and the growing interest of organized crime
in environment management (Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto 2014).
 In the regions of Eastern Finland, with its dual nature of economic/geographic periphery and strong
cultural traits (Häyrynen 2003), multifunctional patterns lie between the concentration and
specialization of agricultural production on the one hand, and powerful rural development discourses
on the other (Rizzo 2012; Rizzo 2015).
Regional settings and multifunctionality

13. Two cultures of food: Northern versus Southern Europe
 Profound differences between ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ food cultures and agricultural systems within
Europe
 In Southern European countries such as Italy, agricultural modernization has not progressed in the same
way as in Northern Europe (cultural and political reasons); at the same time, well-established agricultural
and culinary traditions have better retained their position.
 Northern European countries: productivist agriculture and centralized food supply chains are firmly
established. Nevertheless, their legitimacy has come under scrutiny; increasing numbers of consumers are
seeking alternatives in the form of organic, environmentally or animal welfare friendly produced foods.
 Thus, both in the North and in the South of Europe there is a resistance to the legitimacy and hegemony
of the global agrifood system. Globalization and its counter-movement have given rise to what Whatmore
and Thorne (1997) describe as an ‘alternative geography of food’.

14.  The connection between quality and tradition is stronger in Southern Europe than
in Northern Europe
 Two different types of cuisine: Southern Europe, a wide range of local (quality)
food; in Northern Europe the market and economic efficiency dominate
 Northern Europe food "quality" has been linked to health, safety and hygiene; not
so much to the regional characteristics of the agrifood products.
 Differences in the food processing sectors. In the south these tend to be highly
fragmented, with thousands of small companies involved in the production of
typical foods. By contrast, in the north they tend to be more centralized and
standardized with a predominance of medium and large-sized food manufacturers
with a tight supply chain.

15. Finnish case study
Age 20-29 30-49 50-59 60
Number
of farmers
1 5 10 2
Education
University
degree
Polytechnic
Professional
school
Elementary
school
High school
Number of
farmers
1 3 8 2 2
 Among the farmers interviewed, three were organic, two have changed production (one to crop
production, the other to meat production, three has side work
 Most of the farmers interviewed are active not only in the farming associations, but also in organizations
outside farming. Most of them they got some form of reward related to milk production
 Except for those close to retirement, the farmers interviewed have intention to make some form of investment
in their farm

16.  Dairy farmers livelihood has been mostly affected by the Russian import ban, and of
course in the long run by the abolition of milk quotas (also limited number of supermarket
chains in Finland)
 Flexibility, and capability of understanding future trends are key in adapting to socio-
economic changes. Also important factors level of education, age, professional skills
 Different perceptions on whether agriculture is appreciated in Finnish society
 Dairy farmers strongly embedded in a wide network of sources (eg. sharing equipment
with other farmers, links with advisory an lobbying organizations, and contracting
enterprises)
 Agriculture is to a various extent not only income but also a way of life

17. Adaptations Challenges
Innovativeness Market turmoil and high
volatility of the prices of
products
Healthy courage, not
foolhardiness
Large amount of debt of the
farms
Ability and willingness to
cooperate
Farmers’ inability to lead
effectively and intelligently,
with farms growing too fast
Desire to learn new things Jungle of EU regulations
Lack of continuity and
certainty

18.  In Sicily, about 150 million liters of milk are produced annually.
 The dairy cooperative ”Progetto Natura”, established in 1981, collects about 45 million liters, which is one
third of the total sicilian production. It is the biggest cooperative in Sicily and in the South of Italy.
 Within this cooperative, they do the aging of ”caciocavallo” cheese.
 Since the last few years, a processing company called ”Ragusa latte” is under the control of ”Progetto
Natura” cooperative: quality products and DOP.
 60% of the milk collected within ”Progetto Natura” is conferred to various processing companies (Parmalat
is the main one, or others like Zappala, or other local processing plants at the local level). In some cases, the
milk is conferred also outside Sicily, in Campania, in Puglia, and in Calabria to processing companies).
 In the Province there is 4 or 5 cooperatives. The ideal situation would be that there would be only one
cooperative, but at the moment there is no conditions for that; at the sam politics do not support this process
of agreggation.
Cooperativa Progetto Natura

20.  The data suggest that the Sicilian farmers tend to be individualistic in character, with
no propension to cooperate than their Finnish counterparts
 They appear to be less informed on agricultural and rural development debates
 Challenges consist mainly of increasing costs (especially related to fodder and
electricity) but also to a various extent, of hostile climate, the fragmentation of
institutional actors at the political level, unfair competition, and last but not least, a
Common Agricultural Policy which does not seem to fit to local conditions.
 Main strengths: the persistence of those traditional features and of those livelihood
strategies which can be considered as an active marginality ( see also Meloni and
Farinella 2013), such as cheese production.

21. Concluding remarks
 At the core of many changes towards a more sustainable agriculture is the individual decision-
maker, the farmer.
 Findings suggest that a milk crisis is in place, and farmers are under heavy pressure to cope with
such changes
 Adaptation to change is given by the combination of two interlinked factors: 1) short supply
chain; 2) the ability to predict future change within food production
 Recommendations: to increase farmers’ knowledge by better linking them with other actors of the
countryside; to increase mutual learning and develop new activities so that farmers are able to
expand their own networks not only with other farmers, but also with other interest groups