Sophie Henrotte will give this seminar, organized by the ELI-A department. 

Abstract

Family farms have been, and still are, the main institutional unit of agricultural production around the world. 

This study documents a hidden, yet increasing phenomenon : the shift away from family farms, towards management models relying on contractors and management companies. 

As European farms have historically adapted to rising capital intensity and labor productivity through farm enlargement, land market frictions increasingly constrain this pathway, inducing a shift in how agricultural production is organized. 

Using Walloon field crops as a case study, and a combination of multivariate analyses and qualitative evidence, we uncover how mechanization costs, land market frictions, and generational renewal are driving the shift towards delegated agriculture. 

First, we extend existing typologies of delegated farming, which separate land ownership from task performance, by incorporating decision-making as a distinct dimension. 

Second, we use multivariate analyses to show that delegated farming represents a structural break from traditional farming models by shifting mechanization capital from farm to contractor. 

Finally, we identify land market frictions as the pivotal driver of this transformation, and the absence of balancing mechanisms as evidence that only structural policy change can reverse it. This emerging unbundling of land, labor, capital, and decision-making authority challenges the boundaries of what constitutes "a farm" and who is recognized as "a farmer". 

Left unaddressed, this risks disconnecting subsidies from productive labor or decision-making responsibility, undermining the ability of CAP instruments to reach their intended beneficiaries and target the outcomes they are designed to support.