Alternative Measures of Family Farm Viability - Incorporating Gap Measures

Jason Loughrey, O’Donoghue, Cathal and Ricky Conneely
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Cathal O'donoghue

No 312066, 95th Annual Conference, March 29-30, 2021, Warwick, UK (Hybrid) from Agricultural Economics Society - AES

Abstract: The measurement of farm economic viability has received intermittent academic interest with limited attention given to the conceptual framework surrounding the issue. This paper focuses attention on farm economic viability in Ireland where there are growing concerns about a two-tiered agricultural sector with increasing levels of economic vulnerability. The measurement of farm economic viability is usually based on the headcount ratio, which identifies whether a farm business is viable or non-viable and does not inform about the extent of non-viability. Therefore, it is necessary to develop alternative techniques to provide more clarity on viability levels. This paper draws on concepts from the poverty literature to develop a viability gap measure and a viability severity measure. The trends in farm economic viability are sensitive to the choice of indicator with notable differences between the headcount ratio and the viability gap. The results point to a significant cohort of acutely non-viable cattle and sheep farms. The headcount ratio provides the basis for an incomplete assessment of viability levels and multiple indicators should be considered in monitoring viability levels.

Keywords: Farm Management; Livestock Production/Industries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/312066/files/J ... ty%20Gap%20paper.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ags:aesc21:312066

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.312066

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 95th Annual Conference, March 29-30, 2021, Warwick, UK (Hybrid) from Agricultural Economics Society - AES Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().