Exploring the concept of farm household innovation capacity in relation to farm diversification in policy context

Abstract Innovation is critical for the development of European farming. It has consequences in terms of changing roles for farm households and their capacity to develop new skills to be competitive, and also for the structures of governance required to support innovation and diversification. The innovative and diversification process is complex for farm households. It requires synergistic combinations of local and expert knowledge, capacity to build networks and extract value from those networks, and it requires personal motivation and resilience to achieve business objectives. This paper analyses a number of farm households in Co. Offaly and Co. Mayo, Ireland. Its focus is on household capacity for innovation across a wide range of socio-economic circumstances taking an individual ‘case study’ perspective through data collected on farms and with development agencies/extension services that support them. While innovation appears ‘natural’ to some households in both the agricultural and non-agricultural business sectors, the study also highlights that many farm households struggle to network and tend to rely heavily on the direction of policy actors, neighbours and friends. The paper considers innovation as a complex, territorially embedded process individual to each household and bound up with ideas of self, identity, and place.