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Lookup NU author(s): Federica Consentino, Professor Ruth McAreaveyORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
© The Author(s) 2025. Generational renewal in agriculture has long been declared a priority of European policies, yet little critical attention has been paid to how the problem is represented and to the implicit assumptions that orient instruments and strategies. This study focuses on the first-settlement aid for young farmers (Measure 6.1) of the Rural Development Programme 2014–2022, one of the most prominent policy tools introduced by the European Union to attract new generations into farming. The analysis comparatively examines how Italian regions have implemented the measure through eligibility requirements, selection criteria, and the exercise of regional discretion, highlighting the diversity of policy implementation. Adopting Bacchi’s What’s the Problem Represented to Be? (WPR) framework, the research focuses on how generational renewal is represented and which subjective, discursive, and lived effects – including unintended ones – emerge from such representation. Methodologically, the study combines qualitative content analysis of regional calls with cluster analysis, enabling the identification of five distinct regional approaches (clusters) to generational renewal, while also capturing commonalities and divergences. Results reveal that the dominant representation constructs the “desirable” young farmer primarily as the successor who has already inherited the family farm, while marginalising other categories such as new entrants (young individuals with no family farming background) and potential successors (those who may inherit but have not yet done so). Finally, the study deconstructs dominant CAP paradigms on the topic and argues for more inclusive and differentiated strategies capable of recognising multiple entry pathways and sustaining identity-building processes.
Author(s): Consentino F, McAreavey R, Peri I
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Agriculture and Human Values
Year: 2026
Volume: 43
Online publication date: 19/01/2026
Acceptance date: 16/12/2025
Date deposited: 02/02/2026
ISSN (print): 0889-048X
ISSN (electronic): 1572-8366
Publisher: Springer Nature
URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-025-10841-x
DOI: 10.1007/s10460-025-10841-x
Data Access Statement: The data analysed in this study consist of publicly available calls and policy documents, which can be accessed through the official websites of the relevant regional and national authorities. Further details are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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