Relaciones entre pares.

5.4.1 Self-presentations of the entrepreneurial skills assessed

In conclusion, the interviewed farmers presented themselves generally as skilful with regard to the three entre- preneurial skills. In all three interviewee groups the farmers were able to use some rhetorical resources with which to present themselves as having at least some skills and being able to utilise them to some extent. There were a couple of such exceptions to this rule, where the interviewees presented themselves as lacking some of these skills, but in these cases the absence of the skills was typically presented as resulting from their irrelevance to one’s own situation; none of the interviewees assessed him/herself as unambiguously unskilful. Since none of the interviewees presented him/herself as straightforwardly unskilful, the assessment of the degree of skilfulness is by no means a simple task. There is no simple way to make a gradation of the cases on the basis of the degree of skilfulness, when almost all farmers present themselves as having the skills to some extent. In this study we as- sessed the skilfulness of the presentations on the basis of the convincingness of the argumentation, i.e. on the basis of the rhetorical resources that were used in the making of the self-presentations. With regard to the variety and characteristics of the rhetorical resources used, it was possible to identify differences in the convincingness of the presentations. Further, on the basis of the differences in the convincingness of the self-presentations, salient variation in terms of skilfulness could be detected.

By paying attention to the variety and characteristics of the rhetorical resources used, we were able to identify the ways with which these three skills were manifested in the self-presentations of the interviewees. With regard to the first skill, creating and evaluating a business strategy, the manifestations included, at the simplest, decisions to take up certain line of production or make a certain investment; in such cases the planning was presented as entailing neither active selection among different alternatives nor a concrete means to evaluate the feasibility of different alternatives. When more sophisticated, the manifestations of this skill included the articulation of the current farming strategy, i.e. in the conventional group as either expansion or cost-reduction strategy and in the other groups as niche-oriented value-adding strategy or compensatory business diversification strategy, where the initiation and evaluation of the business strategy was presented as grounded in, e.g. assessment of the fluctua- tions of the sales, markets, profitability and customer feedback. With regard to the second skill, networking and utilisation of contacts, the manifestations included, at the simplest, contacts or networks with buyers (e.g. proc- essing company or dairy) and farmer colleagues, but their utilisation from the perspective of the farm business remained unelaborated. When more sophisticated, the manifestations of this skill included the articulation of the utilisation of the contacts or networks from the perspective of business goals: potential buyers, such as kitchen matrons or customers, were contacted for product promotion purposes; contacts from previous jobs were util- ised in order to acquire expert advice or service commissions; and co-operation with colleagues was done in order to reduce production costs. With regard to the third skill, recognition and realisation of opportunities, the manifestations included, at the simplest, speculations about potential opportunities (e.g. production expansion plans or potential business diversification opportunities), where examples of realised opportunities remained vague and the skill as such was disconnected from the current farm business. When more sophisticated, the manifestations of this skill included the integration of two other skills – the creation of their business strategy and utilisation of contacts – to the more general pursuit and realisation of opportunities. In this way the oppor- tunity skill emerged as a higher level, overarching skill, which was not disconnected from the other skills and business activities.

In summary, it is possible to perceive a salient distinction with respect to all three skills: at the simplest, the mani- festations of the skills were limited mostly to the production context, but they could also reach to the context of market arena and sales promotion; and similarly, at the simplest, they were limited mostly to the context of the

local farming community, but they could also extend to contexts and situations beyond the immediate farming community.

In each of the three interviewee groups (C, VA, NFD), there were on the one hand at least some convincing pres- entations of oneself as having all skills, where quite diverse and rich rhetorical resources were used, by citing examples from the contexts of production and market arena, as well as from other communities and situations besides the immediate farming community. However, there was a clear difference in the typical manifestations of the skills (and in the rhetorical resources used) between the conventional group and the two other groups (VA and NFD): in the presentations of the conventional group, the manifestations were more typically grounded in the contexts of production and the local farming community, whereas in the two other groups the manifestations were also more typically grounded in the contexts of the market arena and those reaching beyond the local farm- ing community (e.g. participation in development projects, networks with other entrepreneurs, colleagues and customers). On the basis of the more comprehensive diversity and richness of the accessible rhetorical resources, it was easier for the farmers engaged in value adding businesses and in non-food diversification businesses to present more convincing manifestations of their skills than for the farmers engaged in conventional production. Between the value-adding and non-food diversification groups the differences in the manifestations of the skills were much smaller; the manifestations pretty much resembled each other, even though in the VA group the strategy and opportunity skill tended to manifest itself as somewhat more market oriented, whereas in the NFD group these skills tended to reflect more the complementarity and synergy between the primary production and the non-food businesses. Hence, even though it was difficult to make differentiations between the groups on the basis of the skilfulness of the self-presentations alone, the presented manifestations of the skills differed from each other considerably between the conventional group and the two other (VA, NFD) groups.

If viewing the manifestations of the skills from the perspective of notions that are typically associated with entre- preneurial behaviour, a couple of observations are worth consideration. First, with regard to the skill of recognis- ing and realising opportunities, it could be noted that innovativeness, an attribute typically associated with en- trepreneurial activity, manifested itself mostly in value adding and non-food diversification groups. Innovations concerning products were more typical of the value adding group, which, almost by definition, seems to be based on the recognition of some unconventional product: in value adding cases there were examples of product devel- opment and utilisation of customer feedback in the modification of products in order to pursue new customers and markets. Innovations concerning production methods could be recognised in all groups: for conventional producers the innovations concerning production methods, such as investments in new means of production, were one of the primary ways of demonstrating the realised opportunities. Another attribute characteristic of entrepreneurial behaviour, namely risk taking, was also mentioned in the presentations of the opportunity skill, but interestingly, typically as something that should be avoided. This tendency to avoid risks manifested itself, e.g. among non-food business diversifiers as one of the reasons for having initiated a non-food business instead of risky investments into the expansion of primary production. As a whole, nobody in any of the groups demon- strated his/her willingness or abilities to take risks in connection with any of the skills; absence of this feature is perhaps one of the peculiar characteristics of this Finnish sample.

In all, the formulation of the three entrepreneurial skills used in this study seemed to be a valid and usable way to assess the adoption and importance of entrepreneurial skills among farmers. These skills could be communicated and discussed quite easily with the interviewees and they often stimulated lengthy and illustrative accounts of the activities of the interviewees. The presented manifestations of these skills also differentiated the groups from each other (i.e., C from VA and NFD) in a way that seems quite reasonable. One feature of the skill-formulations that seemed to benefit the analysis and comparisons between the groups was the two-fold formulation of each skill. Each skill-formulation included two aspects, one that proved to be easier for the interviewees to demonstrate and other that proved to be more challenging to demonstrate: in case of the strategy skill, the creation of a strategy was the more easily demonstrated aspect, whereas evaluation of the strategy was convincingly demonstrated by fewer interviewees; the same principle also applied in the case networking (easier) and utilisation of contacts (more challenging), and opportunity recognition (easier) and opportunity realisation (more challenging). Hence, the applied skill-formulations seemed to offer the interviewees an easier or a more challenging way to demon- strate their skills, which proved to be a helpful methodological solution when making comparison between the presentations and the groups: the farmers engaged in conventional production tended to base their presentations on the more easily demonstrated aspects of the skills, but ran into trouble with the more challenging aspect of the skills; their rhetorical resources did not seem to allow them to demonstrate their skills as comprehensively as the resources characteristic of the two other groups.

Accounting for the development of entrepreneurial skills among farmers

The provided explanations concerning the development of entrepreneurial skills could be divided into two types of attributions: attributions internal to the farmer, and attributions external to the farmer. Internal and external attributions were used to indicate factors that both facilitate and hinder the development of the skills, which means that the farmers accounted for the learning of entrepreneurial skills with four types of explanations. Inter- nal, facilitating attributions included: an open-minded, proactive and enthusiastic orientation; experience gained in the course of persistently exploring novel farming activities; and age (the younger generation was typically viewed as possessing these characteristics to a larger extent, or otherwise as being more prone to adopting such orientations). Respectively, internal hindering attributions included: narrow-minded, routine-based, backward- looking, and defensive attitudes and orientations; inability to try out new things, e.g. due to too tight engagement in routine production activities; and age (the older generation was typically viewed as being more resistant to changes).

External, facilitating attributions included: availability of appropriate, diverse training and counselling services; predictable market visions and policies; dynamically oriented line of production; and motivating financial incen- tives and profits. If looked at from the perspective of external factors that hinder and discourage the learning of the skills, such attributions included: lack of appropriate training and counselling; influence of rigid farming traditions and routines; misplaced incentives and policies that encourage farmers into “pseudo-farming”, un- profitable investments and prevent their long-term vision and planning.

With regard to the question concerning the things that could be done to develop these entrepreneurial skills among farmers, with a couple of exceptions the general stand of the interviewees was that these skills could and should be developed. However, when the answers were examined more closely, it turned out that considerable reservations about the facilitation of the development of the skills were also presented; these reservations did not reject the idea of skill development completely, but instead presented additional means or measures that should be taken besides the ones that focus on skills of individual farmers. Some interviewees also expressed that it would be wrong to think that the entrepreneurial skills of all farmers should be developed, by appealing to argu- ments such as the respecting of the autonomy of farmers, differences in personal dispositions between farmers, or the biasing impact on competition within the farm sector. Concerning the means or measures suggested in cases where a favourable stand towards the question was taken, a variety of suggestions were made in all groups (C, VA and NFD). The suggested means or measures included: education; training and courses; up-to-date ex- tension services; arrangement of development projects; facilitation of information exchange and networking; and creation of a positive atmosphere. Interestingly, societally and politically oriented development suggestions were brought up more in value adding and non-food diversification groups; in addition to suggestions like the preced- ing ones, facilitation of the predictability, motivating and participatory nature of national and EU-level policy and decision making were brought up, as well as securing of continuity of national food-production in Finland. If the variety of the explanations is viewed from the perspective of the nature of the implicated skill development process, the idea of learning seems to be commonly rooted in the core of the accounts. In other words, when the interviewees presented justifications for their view that the aforementioned internal and external factors affect the learning of skills, they typically did it by constructing the learning event as a process involving the widening of one’s perspectives – or the testing and adoption of novel ones. Facilitating factors functioned to introduce the farmer to novel perspectives and distance her from habitual ones, whereas the hindering factors tended to pre- vent the farmer from breathing fresh air into her activities and accessing novel perspectives.

Concerning the overall attitude expressed in the answers to questions on skill development, the generally com- pliant orientation in the answers can be taken to indicate that the interviewees orient quite favourably to the idea of developing entrepreneurial skills and to the importance of these entrepreneurial skills more generally. This tendency is in line with the comments made earlier in connection with the presentation of their own skills, where the overall importance of these skills was hardly questioned. However, compliance or adoption of entrepreneuri- alism seems not to be overarching or complete, since it was quite common to express concern or even pessimism about the current state of affairs and to suggest that either the development of entrepreneurial skills would also require other measures besides those that focus on the individual farmers or that other issues than the develop- ment of entrepreneurial skills should also be taken care of. When expressing such concerns, the interviewees easily made their points by using old “producer” discourse; such a discourse was to some extent used by inter-

viewees from all groups. Concerns about the continuity of the Finnish agriculture and about the means and in- centives with which to guarantee high-quality domestic food production in the future were expressed in all three interviewee groups. Such a line of argumentation, which pinpointed the crucial role of policy definitions, subsi- dies and relations within the Finnish food industry as determinants of the fate of the whole Finnish agro-food sector, emerged as a counter-repertoire to the otherwise consistent emphasis on individual orientations and farmer-centric perspective.

Contribution and comments from the workshop with experts

The workshop took place in the municipality of Nurmijärvi, in the municipal government office. Four experts, representing regional agricultural officials, extension services, local agricultural and rural administration and the farmers’ interest group, joined the workshop. The workshop lasted about three hours and its aim was to discuss with the experts about the assumptions and results of the research, focusing on the work done in the main stage of the project. In the first part of the workshop the basic setting and assumptions of the project and farmer inter- views were presented to the experts. After that, the results of the interviews were presented and similarities and differences between the farmers’ and the experts’ views were discussed.

The discussion was started by presenting the basic assumptions behind the qualitative farmer interviews, the selection of the three skills and the three strategic orientation groups. The experts were asked to reflect on the assumptions and decisions made and to comment, whether they could come up with some complements, objec- tions or other remarks. In the discussion, no objections concerning the assumptions and setting were brought up. The experts did not question the rationality of selecting the entrepreneurial skills and the strategic groups in the manner it was done in. Instead, the experts made some comments concerning the nature of a qualitative research setting by suggesting that it probably is a challenging task to manage a systematic, uniform procedure in a setting involving six countries and researchers from different backgrounds. Other comments concerned the way the samples of farmers were selected and what kind of farmers were likely to be picked up in the sample. One expert also took up the concept of managerial and leading skills and their role in the composition of the three skills, since he regarded managerial skills as important in many current farm businesses. The comment was followed by some discussion, where the role of managerial skills was elaborated and suggested that in a way such skills are already included as aspects in the currently formulated three skills; strategy skills, networking skills and opportu- nity realisation skills all refer to such general tasks and activities, which can be viewed as core elements in mana- gerial and leading skills.

In all, the experts did not disagree with the importance of the three entrepreneurial skills. The following step in the workshop was the presentation and discussion of the results concerning the assessments of the farmers’ own skills and the factors that affect their development. In general, the experts commented that according to their experiences it is reasonable to expect pretty fluent self-presentations of the farmers’ own entrepreneurial skills among the more advanced, prominent group of farmers, which had tended to be selected to be the samples in the project. Hence the general findings as such did not raise much wonderment or additional remarks. However, experts believed that outside such an advanced group of farmers other, less fluent kinds of self-presentations can also be expected. Such a stand is in line with the attributions of the interviewed farmers, whose general view was that there are indeed differences in the level of skilfulness among farmers. Furthermore, the experts speculated about the effects of various farm characteristics or factors, such as line of production and investment intensive-