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My decision to sell the family farm

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Abstract

This paper presents a discussion of my personal experiences of selling a family farm and analyses those experiences using the layered account form of autoethnographic writing. I describe how the cultural influences from family farming led me, a farmer’s son, to also become a farmer, why farmers may choose to continue in their occupation sometimes against increasingly negative economic pressures, why I continued farming for as long as I did, and the thoughts and feelings associated with my decision to sell my farm and exit the industry. I discuss the emotions that I experienced and place them in a theoretical context that makes them more understandable to others. Because this paper examines the effects from my decision to retire from farming it makes a contribution to the limited literature on farmers’ retirement.

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Notes

  1. Common name for the Australian plant Xanthorrhoea australis.

  2. What the poem does not make explicit is the progression from father to son. My father carried out much of the early work on the farm by himself. I then worked alongside him once I left school. Eventually he retired from farming and left me to work the farm by myself.

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  1. CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, PMB 2, Glen Osmond, SA, 5064, Australia

    Geoff Kuehne

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  1. Geoff Kuehne
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Correspondence to Geoff Kuehne.

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Kuehne, G. My decision to sell the family farm. Agric Hum Values 30, 203–213 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-012-9393-7

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