Generational Changes in Agriculture: The Influence of Farm Characteristics and Socio-Economic Factors

Wojciech Sroka, Michał Dudek, Tomasz Wojewodzic and Karol Król
Additional contact information
Wojciech Sroka: Department of Economics and Food Economy, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Al. Mickiewicza 21, 31-120 Kraków, Poland
Michał Dudek: The Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics—National Research Institute (IAFE-NRI), ul. Świętokrzyska 20, 00-002 Warszawa, Poland
Tomasz Wojewodzic: Department of Economics and Food Economy, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Al. Mickiewicza 21, 31-120 Kraków, Poland
Karol Król: Department of Land Management and Landscape Architecture, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Balicka 253c, 30-149 Kraków, Poland

Agriculture, 2019, vol. 9, issue 12, 1-27

Abstract: The increasing importance of large cities (metropolises) poses a range of challenges to the socio-economic functions of the rural and agricultural areas around them. One such challenge is pressure exerted on family-run farms to abandon agricultural activity and on people engaged in such activity to shift to other sectors. This may be a hindrance to successful succession on family farms. The aim of this paper is to present spatial variation in generational changes in farms located around large cities (metropolises) in Poland and to assess the factors affecting the scale of such changes. Special attention was paid to the importance of the location of farms relative to large cities. One innovative feature of the approach presented was to conduct an analysis of generational changes in the agricultural sector at the supra-local level along with an attempt to quantify the impact of large urban centers on that process. The empirical material based on which the conclusions were formulated included official statistics data and information made available by an institution engaged in the implementation of agricultural policy programs financed from European Union (EU) funds, i.e., young farmer payments (Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) pillar I) and measures “Setting up of young farmers” and “Early retirement” (CAP Pillar II). In the executed study, methods of descriptive and multivariate statistics, including regression trees, were used. It was found that socio-economic (exogenous) factors had a significant statistical impact on generational changes in farms. In areas with an attractive labor market and a high level of urbanization, a successful generational shift in farms occurred less often. Nonetheless, generational changes in the agriculture of the analyzed areas were relatively most strongly determined by endogenous factors linked with the economic potential of the farm. Farm characteristics (area of agricultural land and economic size) and the characteristics of managers, including in particular their education, were found to be more important than exogenous factors. In areas where large and economically strong farms dominated and the level of education among farmers was relatively high, generational changes were faster compared to other areas.

Keywords: generational changes; agriculture; succession; young farmer; early retirement; metropolitan area (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: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/12/264/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/12/264/ (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:9:y:2019:i:12:p:264-:d:298156

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 ().