What makes a citrus farmer go organic? Empirical evidence from Spanish citrus farming

Mercedes Beltrán-Esteve, Andres Picazo-Tadeo and Ernest Reig-Martínez ()
Additional contact information
Mercedes Beltrán-Esteve: Universidad de Valencia

No 1205, Working Papers from Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia

Abstract: Organic farming is increasing its share of total world food output and receiving growing support from policymakers concerned with agricultural sustainability issues. This paper studies the characteristics of citrus farmers in the Spanish region of Valencia that affect their probability of becoming organic farmers. A fair understanding of these characteristics may help policymakers improve the design of agricultural policies aimed at supporting organic citrus practices. As regards the methodology, a probit model is estimated with information of a sample of conventional and organic citrus farmers obtained from a survey specifically designed for the purpose of this research. Our main finding is that university education and agricultural professional training both increase the probability of becoming an organic farmer. Conversely, older farmers, farmers selling their production to foreign markets and those with farms of greater size and/or managing family farms are less likely to adopt organic citrus farming. The main policy implication is that, in order to support organic citrus production, more attention needs to be paid to improve farmersÕ technical training and education concerning organic farming.

Keywords: Citrus farming; organic versus conventional production; probit estimation; education and professional training; Spain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 Q01 Q12 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2012-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://repecsrv.uv.es/paper/RePEc/pdf/eec_1205.pdf First version, 2012 (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:eec:wpaper:1205

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Vicente Esteve ().