BOOK REVIEW

G.A. Alsos, S. Carter, E. Ljunggren, and F. Welter (eds.), The Handbook of Research on En-trepreneurship in Agriculture and Rural Development. Northhampton: Edward Elgar Publishing,Inc. 320 pp., ISBN: 978 1 84844 635 0, $195 hardcover.

Sectoral research on entrepreneurship has often focused on manufacturing, high technology,and service industries, with seemingly little attention paid to agriculture. This book remediesthe shortfall by bringing together 16 separate studies of various aspects of entrepreneurship inagriculture with an eye for how fluctuations impact rural development. With 46 contributors,it would have been easy for the handbook to lack direction and cohesion. However, the editorshave done an admirable job of organizing the text and linking concepts across sections. Theuse of consistent and clear formatting of the included studies is especially appreciated andcontributes to the overall continuity of the book.

The Introduction, authored by the volume’s editors, provides an overview of the philosophyof the handbook, and convincingly motivates the need for entrepreneurial research focusedexpressly on agriculture. Specifically, the editors credit increased retailer concentration, policyreforms that have reduced support for agriculture, and the growing complexity of consumerpreferences, all as sources of rationale for the observed increase in entrepreneurial activity inagriculture.

Broad changes in the sector and attitudes toward entrepreneurship have created numerousresearch opportunities for economist and rural sociologist alike; however, the editors posit thatthe two camps are rarely linked despite sharing common research objectives. Indeed, none ofthe individual studies contained in the volume appear to be jointly authored by economists andrural sociologists. Thus, the bridging of the two disciplines is primarily left for the editors tosuggest and the reader to infer from their juxtaposition of individual studies. Despite a lack ofinterchapter collaboration, an effort is made to organize the book into sections, within which arecontributions from both disciplines. The result is, at minimum, an illumination of the similarityof outcomes that can be achieved via application of different social science methodologies.

Unlike the theoretically dense Handbook of Entrepreneurship Research: Disciplinary Perspec-tives (Alvarez, Agarwal, & Sorenson, 2005), the chapters in this handbook rely heavily on thecase study method, with significantly less emphasis on examination of theoretical underpinningsand cutting-edge statistical methods. Econometricians looking for statistical rigor may wantto look elsewhere for methodological guidance. However, applied agricultural economists—particularly those with an affinity for industrial organization, food policy, agribusiness, andregional economics fields—may find this volume a refreshingly quick read, unencumbered bylengthy discussions of theory, supporting literature, and methods.

The chapters are organized according to three themes. The first theme, “Entrepreneurship inthe Farming Sector,” includes six studies focused on the individual firm or farm or on individualentrepreneurs. The diversity of entrepreneurial activities is explored and differences explainedin terms of resource depth and breadth, farmer motivation, and other factors. Probability ofentrepreneurial success is found to be enhanced by access to resources; however, chapter 5,by Jorunn Grande, demonstrates that resource richness alone does not guarantee profitability.Rather, she argues, the probability of success is enhanced through the operator’s ability tobe creative and think strategically about how to deploy resources. Chapter 6, by St-Jean, LeBel, and Audet, all from Quebec, reviews the case of Eastern Canadian forestry firms whereoperation size and depth of entrepreneurial potential are found to be positively correlated.Chapter 7, by Pyysiainen, Halpin, and Vesala, summarizes a study of European farmers’attitudes towards entrepreneurship and finds that, contrary to public perception, survey re-spondents are amenable to the idea of entrepreneurship and towards self-identification asentrepreneurs. Despite a lack of philosophical resistance towards change and innovation, somefarmers feel that entrepreneurial activities are not right for their type of operations. Thus,

Agribusiness, Vol. 28 (1) 118–120 (2012) C© 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/agr). DOI: 10.1002/agr.20294

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a lack of demonstrated entrepreneurship does not necessarily imply an inherent shortage ofcapabilities or any resistance towards their application.

In the second section, “Innovations in Food Production and Distribution,” the theme isbroadened beyond the farm gate. This section covers new developments in food production anddistribution systems together with different methods of entrepreneurship, including innovativeand imitative practices. Chapter 8, by Ross Brown, examines the “entrepreneurial dynamics”of the Scottish food and drink cluster. Rapidly growing firms are found to act as “vital growthnodes” that catalyze growth in related sectors. Chapter 9, by Lewis, Walker, and Cassells, andchapter 12, by Veidal and Flaten, analyze the different motivations that entrepreneurs havefor engaging in new “old” practices, such as biodynamic farming and farmers’ markets. Bothstudies consider the variety of reasons producers engage in certain farm-related activities, whilealso exploring the demographic and psychographic characteristics of their sample populations.In chapter 13, David Pickernell and colleagues examine how vendors in the farmers’ marketcommunity of South East Wales, England, utilize virtual farmers’ markets to increase business-to-business and business-to-customer sales. Chapter 10, by Markowska, Saemundsson, andWiklund, contains a number of examples of how producers add value to their market offerings,while also describing which producers are most likely to innovate. The researchers find thatindividuals who are “strongly embedded in social networks” are more likely to demonstrateentrepreneurial activity. In chapter 11, Kenneth Robinson and colleagues apply the case studymethod to an Arkansas producer cooperative. Through the description of the evolution ofthis single organization, the authors detail many of the practical impediments to forming andmaintaining an entrepreneurial collective, while offering suggestions for avoiding some of thedifficulties encountered.

The final section, on the theme of “Agricultural Entrepreneurship and its Spatial Context,”explores the relationships between agricultural entrepreneurships and the regions and countriesin which they operate. Examining linkages between economic diversity, which may be fueledby entrepreneurship, and economic development is a common theme among these chapters.Chapter 14, by Koster, Brouwer, and van Leeuwen, is one of the more statistically rigorouscontributions to the volume. These authors explore how entrepreneurship and innovation thatleads to diversification of farm activities affects income levels in a rural municipality of theNetherlands. The value of diversity to rural municipalities is scrutinized again in chapter 15,by Jane Atterton and colleagues, this time in northeast England. However, diversity in thisstudy arises from the presence of “in-migrants” to a rural area. These new residents or “neo-endogenous facilitators” are hypothesized to bring new knowledge to rural areas, althoughthe realization of economic value from these new ideas and activities is a function of howwell integrated and embedded the newcomers are within the local community. Chapter 16, byBeaudoin, Le Bel, and Bouthillier, describes the generation of entrepreneur-driven economicactivity in an Aboriginal community. The case study follows the evolution of the MasteuistshIlnu forest entrepreneurs as they develop an organization to support entrepreneurial activityon the western shores of Lac-Saint-Jean in the province of Quebec, Canada. The chapteroffers insights into the elements that communities need to foster entrepreneurship, and therole that local and regional governments may play in the procurement of these factors. Thefinal chapter in the handbook, by Jane Glover, applies the concept of diversity to differenttypes of capital—economic, cultural, social, and symbolic—and draws inferences about howavailability of these types of assets may impact farm management styles and the ability to takeadvantage of entrepreneurial and other business opportunities. Although limited in scope, thechapter provides an interesting case study on the importance of social networks for creating andenhancing social capital. Further, it suggests means of improving access to a variety of formsof capital with the ultimate goal of sustaining a family farm and supporting entrepreneurialactivity.

Many facets of entrepreneurship are explored in this book, justifying the characterizationof the text as a handbook. Although the volume shines in terms of topic variety, overall theapplicability of study findings may be limited given the small sample sizes and narrow geographicregions featured in the individual chapters. Noting this, the editors do explain at the outset that

Agribusiness DOI 10.1002/agr

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this text “should be considered a means of testing the water for future collaborations.” As such,we take it to mean that the intention was not to create a text that definitively describes thenature of agricultural entrepreneurship and rural development in aggregate. With the realisticobjective of the editors in mind, any weaknesses of the text in terms of statistical and theoreticaldepth can be forgiven, and the work appreciated for the research ideas and partnerships it willlikely inspire.

Reference

Alvarez, S.A., Agarwal, R.R., & Sorenson, O. (Eds.). (2005). Handbook of entrepreneurship research: Disciplinaryperspectives. New York: Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.

Jennifer Bond and Gregory GraffDepartment of Agricultural and Resource EconomicsColorado State University1172 Campus DeliveryFort Collins CO80523-1172E-mail: JENNIFER.BOND@colostate.edu

Agribusiness DOI 10.1002/agr