abstract: 'Many Swiss farming families face socioeconomic disadvantage despite

  Switzerland being a wealthy country with instruments of agricultural

  policy financially supporting almost all farmers. However, official

  poverty statistics exclude Swiss farmers and scientific knowledge is

  rare about how such situations are experienced. This article scrutinises

  the situation of Swiss farming families living in poverty or material

  deprivation by intertwining qualitative and quantitative methods to

  enrich both types of data and interpretations. By statistically

  comparing farmers with the self-employed in other economic sectors, it

  uses a novel way of comparing the farming with the non-farming

  population. The article shows that the poverty among farmers resembles

  that of the self-employed with no or few employees in other economic

  sectors and describes the lived experiences of poverty and material

  deprivation. It concludes that adaptive preferences make farming

  families resilient to socioeconomic disadvantage, while possibly leading

  to a loss of their livelihood in the long run.'
affiliation: 'Contzen, S (Corresponding Author), Bern Univ Appl Sci, Sch Agr Forest
  \& Food Sci, Laenggasse 85, CH-3052 Zollikofen, Switzerland.

  Contzen, Sandra, Bern Univ Appl Sci, Sch Agr Forest \& Food Sci, Laenggasse 85,
  CH-3052 Zollikofen, Switzerland.

  Crettaz, Eric, Univ Appl Sci Western Switzerland, Sch Social Work, Rue Prevost Martin
  28, CH-1205 Geneva, Switzerland.'
author: Contzen, Sandra and Crettaz, Eric
author-email: sandra.contzen@bfh.ch
author_list:
- family: Contzen
  given: Sandra
- family: Crettaz
  given: Eric
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1111/soru.12230
eissn: 1467-9523
files: []
issn: 0038-0199
journal: SOCIOLOGIA RURALIS
keywords: 'adaptive preferences; farming families; financial poverty; material

  deprivation; Switzerland'
keywords-plus: WORKING POVERTY; ADAPTIVE PREFERENCES; DEPRIVATION; INCOME; LIFE
language: English
month: JUL
number: 3, SI
number-of-cited-references: '79'
pages: 393-418
papis_id: 62b9f894170fc7c998a1eab66373b7c5
ref: Contzen2019beingpoor
researcherid-numbers: Contzen, Sandra/ABB-4547-2020
times-cited: '7'
title: 'Being a poor farmer in a wealthy country: A Swiss case study'
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000478097700003
usage-count-last-180-days: '0'
usage-count-since-2013: '5'
volume: '59'
web-of-science-categories: Geography; Sociology
year: '2019'