Extrafamilial farm succession: an adaptive strategy contributing to the renewal of peasantries in Austria

This article examines extrafamilial farm transmission, a process that brings together elderly farmers without successors and young people who aspire to farm but face various economic, social and cultural barriers to enter into the sector. First-hand accounts of the process from Austrian smallholders are systematically analysed to produce a stage-by-stage model. The multigenerational non-familial agrarian partnership this represents offers an alternative mechanism for maintaining small-scale food production and improving food security and food sovereignty. It is recommended as an adaptive strategy for the survival and re-generation of peasantry in the twenty-first century.© 2018 The Author(s