The Farm Diversification Grant Scheme: Adoption and Nonadoption in England and Wales

The Farm Diversification Grant Scheme, introduced in the United Kingdom in 1988, encourages farmers to diversify their business activities on the farm. In this paper, the Scheme is described and both the ‘farm’ and ‘farmer’ characteristics of a sample of ‘adopters’ and ‘nonadopters’ in England and Wales are examined as well as the reasons for adoption and nonadoption. The results indicate that adopters are drawn from larger farms, those with higher incomes and levels of borrowing, the younger, better educated farmers, and from farms where spouses are more actively involved in developing the business. Considerable resistance towards diversification was found among nonadopters, who have still to be convinced of the financial viability of this type of business development; to many, it is just not farming.