`I'm sad to be glad'. An analysis of farmers' pride in flanders

It is widely acknowledged that agriculture in Europe is going through a process of great change at the economic, social, political, and environmental, as well as the cultural, level. Pride may be considered as the fit between the farmers' identity (and hence their expectations and aspirations) and the daily reality of being a farmer in this constantly changing environment. Based on qualitative interviews with farmers in three Flemish villages and grounded theory analysis including coding and scoring the interviews, the research described here unravels the complex notion of pride into 24 concepts combined under individual, social and external categories. The semi-quantitative analysis of the interviews clarifies the positive or negative impact of these concepts on the farmers' pride. The positive impact is derived from the concepts that the farmers can control themselves. On the other hand, external concepts that are beyond the control of the farmers influence their pride in a clearly negative way, while the concepts in the social category are less influential. The data show some remarkable differences between men and women.