Diversified and Sustainable Business Strategy of Smallholder Farmers in the Suburbs of Taiwan

Ching-Sung Lee, Yen-Cheng Chen, Pei-Ling Tsui and Ming-Chen Chiang
Additional contact information
Ching-Sung Lee: Department of Restaurant, Hotel and Institutional Management, College of Human Ecology, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei City 242062, Taiwan
Yen-Cheng Chen: Department of Applied Science of Living, College of Agriculture, Chinese Culture University, Taipei 11114, Taiwan
Pei-Ling Tsui: Department of Hospitality Management, National Taitung Junior College, Taitung 95045, Taiwan
Ming-Chen Chiang: Ph.D. Program in Nutrition and Food Science, College of Human Ecology, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei City 242062, Taiwan

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-14

Abstract: Taiwan’s smallholder farmers are transforming into a diversified business model to respond to the transformation of economic structures and the demand for sightseeing and recreation. On that account, it is urgent and valuable at the research level to develop diversified and sustainable business strategies and models for smallholder farmers. There are two goals in this study. First of all, the study formulated the indicators of diversified and sustainable business strategies for smallholder farmers in Taiwan’s suburbs. Second, the study measured the relevant weights of these indicators from the perspectives of experts. The qualitative and quantitative Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied in the study, with Taiwan’s agricultural experts being our main subjects to establish the indicators and models for diversified and sustainable business strategies based on their opinions. According to the research results, there were 6 criteria and 25 sub-criteria for smallholder farmers in terms of diversified and sustainable business strategies, among which, catering services topped other criteria; food health and safety outweighed other sub-criteria of diversified and sustainable business strategies for smallholder farmers. The greatest contribution of the study is the establishment of the indicators and models of diversified and sustainable strategies for smallholder farmers in Taiwan’s suburbs and the discovery that catering service can be an important orientation of diversified and sustainable business strategies for smallholder farmers in Taiwan’s suburbs.

Keywords: smallholder; farm operation; diversification business strategy; food service (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/6/740/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/6/740/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:12:y:2022:i:6:p:740-:d:822532

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().