'Tradition' trumping economics to keep hill farmers on the land
So many factors are stacked against the ageing owners of our upland sheep farms, but a sense of attachment compels them to battle on, new academic research finds
Status: Social identity and one's standing in the community are important factors in keeping farmers on the hills
Why would bachelor farmers with no successors continue to work difficult hill farms, even when it is uneconomical to do so?
That's the question Dr Eileen O'Rourke of UCC looked at when she researched the factors behind land abandonment in Irish uplands.
