Sustainable family farming in smallholding systems. A comparative study of cases in Galicia and Ireland

Abstract

This essay presents the results of an economic, social and cultural study of family farms based on Galician and Irish cases. We have conducted a specialized survey on the social, economic, technological and cultural characteristics of milk-producing agricultural families located around the North-Western municipalities of Galicia as well as in the North-Western area of the County of Cork in Ireland. The essay is based on an analysis of the main results. To a higher or lesser extent, social change and agricultural transformation can be seen in both cases in the influence area of the milk cooperatives under study. The conclusions allow us to state that rural society in Galicia should not necessarily move towards massive consolidation of fragmented holdings and unbound agricultural and industrial development. Cultural smallholding practices should not be replaced by a “made-up large state” which is alien to the social, economic and cultural reality of Galicia. The Galician smallholding families’ multiactivity is an inherited cultural practice to be preserved. On the Irish countryside, this inherited cultural practice has dissapeared and attempts are now being made to recover the “life style” associated to traditional family farming as a means to avoid emigration and fix population in rural areas.