Portfolio entrepreneurship in the farm sector: indigenous growth in rural areas?

Although multiple business ownership has only recently attracted extensive consideration within the small firms' research literature, agricultural scholars have consistently reported that many farm businesses combine agricultural production with other income-generating activities and that such 'pluriactivity' has always been an important and distinctive feature of the farm sector. This paper reports the results of a survey that investigated the business ownership activities of 296 farm owners in Cambridgeshire. The results reveal extensive business ownership activities, particularly among younger and better trained farm owners. It is argued that additional business activities are best viewed as a continuum from the diversification of existing assets to the ownership of a portfolio of businesses. Although farms are normally excluded from small business analyses of rural entrepreneurship, the paper concludes that farmers are an important element of the small business owning population. This is demonstrated not only in their ownership of farm businesses, but also in their propensity to engage in farm-centred diversification activities, their ability to start new non-farm enterprises and in their rental of farm land and buildings to external businesses.