Profile of the Small-Scale Farms Willing to Cooperate—Evidence from Lithuania
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Literature Overview
2.1. Reluctance to Cooperate
- Psychological factors include a bad association with the Soviet-era “kolchozes”, producers’ distrust of each other, a low level of economic awareness among farmers, a lack of leaders, a lack of successful stories, and exaggeration of negative experiences being a cooperative member.
- Economic factors and legal issues include a lack of financial funds to start a successful economic activity, the employment of specialists, a lack of financial support, the lack of a system for regulating the equitable distribution of value added throughout the value chain, and changing law.
- Organisational factors include a lack of awareness of the benefits cooperatives bring, a lack of professional consulting and coaching facilities available to cooperative members, and a diverse level of knowledge and skills of existing consultants.
2.2. Incentives for Cooperation
3. Materials and Methods
4. Results
4.1. Small-Scale Farms’ Performance in Lithuania
4.2. Extent of the Involvement of Small Family Farms in Cooperation in Lithuania
4.3. The Profile of Small-Scale Farms Willing to Cooperate in Lithuania
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
Variable | Obs. | Mean | Std. Dev. | Min | Max |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Age | 1002 | 47.61 | 13.68 | 19 | 77 |
Women | 490 | 47.73 | 13.67 | 20 | 77 |
Men | 512 | 47.49 | 13.65 | 19 | 74 |
Total farm area (ha) | 1002 | 10.49 | 5.92 | 1 | 20 |
Direct payments and other support in agricultural income (%) | 1002 | 54.93 | 25.47 | 5 | 100 |
Income structure, agricultural (%) | 1002 | 39.19 | 23.76 | 4 | 100 |
Income structure, work (%) | 1002 | 42.04 | 32.02 | 0 | 100 |
Income structure, self-employment (%) | 1002 | 9.72 | 18.19 | 0 | 95 |
Income structure, pensions (%) | 1002 | 7.39 | 19.24 | 0 | 80 |
Income structure, social transfers, (%) | 1002 | 1.42 | 8.11 | 0 | 75 |
Income structure, remittances (%) | 1002 | 0.14 | 2.75 | 0 | 76 |
Income structure, other sources (%) | 1002 | 0.12 | 2.10 | 0 | 40 |
Total value of agricultural production, total (euro) | 1002 | 5614.28 | 4900.82 | 0 | 48,000 |
Total value of agricultural production, plant (euro) | 1002 | 3287.05 | 4368.11 | 0 | 48,000 |
Total value of agricultural production, animal (euro) | 1002 | 2330.62 | 3477.31 | 0 | 23,000 |
Estimated market value of farm, total (euro) | 1002 | 51,308.24 | 37,690.97 | 600 | 205,000 |
Estimated market value of farm, land (euro) | 1002 | 27,146.49 | 22,571.49 | 0 | 130,000 |
Estimated market value of farm, capital assets (euro) | 1002 | 21,832.34 | 21,538.60 | 0 | 140,000 |
Estimated market value of farm, livestock (euro) | 1002 | 2501.967 | 4559.91 | 0 | 80,000 |
Variable | Frequency | Variable | Frequency |
---|---|---|---|
Sex | Participation in a social and/or cultural events | ||
Female | 490 | Yes | 784 |
Male | 512 | No | 218 |
Education | Farm type | ||
No education | 1 | Field crops—cereals | 185 |
Primary | 0 | Horticulture | 38 |
Secondary | 32 | Wine | 3 |
Vocational | 454 | Other permanent crops | 43 |
General | 58 | Milk | 47 |
Bachelor’s degree | 340 | Other grazing livestock | 25 |
Master’s degree | 117 | Granivores | 52 |
Socio-economic group | Mixed cropping | 108 | |
Self-employers in agriculture | 268 | Horticulture | 17 |
Hired workers | 549 | Other field crops | 34 |
Self-employers, employers (in in other activities) | 76 | Mixed livestock | 41 |
Pensioners | 96 | Various crops and livestock combined | 388 |
Socially supported | 12 | Berry growing | 21 |
Households living on social transfers | 1 |
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Research Stages | Task | Result | Data Source |
---|---|---|---|
Preparation stage | Define the small-scale farm size in Lithuania | Definition of the small-scale farm of the total Lithuanian farms | Farm Structures Survey data 2016 (Statistics Lithuania, 2018 and EUROSTAT, 2019) |
Stage I | Explore the main characteristics of the small-scale farms in Lithuania according the official statistics | Small-scale farms’ performance in Lithuania | Farm Structures Survey data 2016 (Statistics Lithuania, 2018 and EUROSTAT, 2019) |
Stage II | Explore the main characteristics and market integration level of the small-scale farms in Lithuania according to the primary data Investigate the situation of the Agricultural Cooperatives and Cooperative Companies in Lithuania | Dataset on various characteristics and market integration level of small-scale farms in Lithuania Dataset of Agricultural Cooperatives and Cooperative Companies acting in Lithuania (number, size, types. and sectors of activity) | Representative survey of small-scale farms in Lithuania, 2019 (N = 1002) Cooperative survey data, 2019 (N = 102) |
Stage III | Draw up a profile of a smallholder farmer, small-scale farm willing to cooperate and compare to those reluctant to cooperate | Economic characteristics of farms and social profile of smallholder farmer investigated | Representative survey of small-scale farms in Lithuania, 2019 (N = 1002) |
Economic Size Based on Standard Output (SO) | Number of Farms | % of Total Farms | % of Farms Where Household Consumes >50% of the Final Production ** | UAA in 1000 ha | % of Total UAA | SO in 1000 € | % of Total SO | Number of AWU | % of Total AWU | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Very small farms (<€8000) | <€2000 | 46,300 | 30.8 | 58.8 | 164.4 | 5.6 | 41,303 | 1.9 | 28,840 | 19.4 |
€2000–<€4000 | 30,890 | 20.5 | 60.4 | 142.1 | 4.9 | 89,571 | 4.0 | 23,170 | 15.6 | |
€4000–<€8000 | 26,330 | 17.5 | 50.9 | 221.4 | 7.6 | 148,804 | 6.7 | 21,810 | 14.7 | |
Total | 103,520 | 68.8 | 57.3 | 527.9 | 18.1 | 279,678 | 12.6 | 73,820 | 49.7 | |
Medium-small farms (€8000–<€25,000) | €8000–<€15,000 | 16,390 | 10.9 | 24.0 | 257.6 | 8.8 | 177,334 | 8.0 | 17,260 | 11.6 |
€15,000–<€25,000 | 6250 | 4.2 | 3.4 | 175.5 | 6.0 | 118,598 | 5.3 | 7480 | 5.0 | |
Total | 22,640 | 15.1 | 18.3 | 433.1 | 14.8 | 295,932 | 13.3 | 24,740 | 16.7 | |
Total number of small-scale farms (<€25,000) | 126,160 | 83.9 | 50.3 | 961.0 | 32.9 | 575,610 | 25.9 | 98,560 | 66.4 |
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Droždz, J.; Vitunskienė, V.; Novickytė, L. Profile of the Small-Scale Farms Willing to Cooperate—Evidence from Lithuania. Agriculture 2021, 11, 1071. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11111071
Droždz J, Vitunskienė V, Novickytė L. Profile of the Small-Scale Farms Willing to Cooperate—Evidence from Lithuania. Agriculture. 2021; 11(11):1071. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11111071
Chicago/Turabian StyleDroždz, Jolanta, Vlada Vitunskienė, and Lina Novickytė. 2021. "Profile of the Small-Scale Farms Willing to Cooperate—Evidence from Lithuania" Agriculture 11, no. 11: 1071. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11111071