Life and work on small-scale farms in Norway: an outlook based on survey results linked to financial data

This paper studies what causes (small-scale) farmers to leave their farms and typically move to urban areas. A data set is constructed by linking survey results with financial data, and the data set is analyzed by multivariate statistical techniques. Our results indicate that, while existence and size of future farm production is important, there is also a difference between farmers who primarily have financial objectives for their farming, and those who have more lifestyle oriented objectives. The latter group is, everything else being equal, more likely to stay on the farm. This could imply that, if preventing migration from rural to urban areas is a policy objective, production support schemes will be effective for some groups, but will be less effective for the group with lifestyle objectives. If this group is to be encouraged to stay on the countryside, policies directed at improving the general living conditions in the local community are likely to be more effective than specific support schemes related to agricultural production.