European dairy farmersʼ perceptions and responses towards development strategies in years of turbulent market and policy changes

Kuipers, Abele (author), Malak-Rawlikowska, Agata (author), Stalgienė, Aldona (author), Ule, Anita (author), Klopčič, Marija (author)

Farmers operate in a changing market, policy and social environment so questions arise as to how they experience these changes and react in their business orientation. This topic was examined in the period 2011 to 2016 in a strongly fluctuating product market and food policy environment, e.g., abolition of milk quotas in Europe. The study was based on unique panel data for 290 dairy farms in Poland, Slovenia, Lithuania and The Netherlands, questioned up to three times in 2011, 2013 and 2016. The conceptual framework was composed of Farmer goals, Resources, Opportunities and Threats (O&T), and Future expectations (performance) as continuous variables, and countries and strategy farmer groups as categorical variables. Data were analysed applying PCA, ANOVA, cluster and regression analyses. Dairy farmers seemed not to be motivated or educated to take strategic decisions that made the best use of their resources and to take opportunities and mitigate threats to achieve their personal goals. Farmer perceptions were strongly affected by country of origin, local environment and milk price, and less by the strategy group. The market situation is one of the dominant factors affecting the mind-set of farmers in Europe. Future expectations were evaluated highest in 2013 (period with ‘high’ prices), lowest in 2016 (price crisis) and intermediate in 2011 (moderate price period). The large dependence of farmers on the price of their product could be a sensitive issue for politicians, but also food chain members and farmers’ syndicates. They may anticipate a fluctuating attitude of farmers with respect to organisational and institutional plans and implemented measures, depending on the market situation and related policy context.

• Language: English
• Keywords: policy changes, abolition of the milk quota, farmers’ perceptions, farming goals, resources, opportunities and threats, market situation, strategies, Europe
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 24 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 11, iss. 4, art. 293
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-135206
• UDC: 636.2
• ISSN on article: 2077-0472
• DOI: 10.3390/agriculture11040293
• COBISS.SI-ID: 58170883
• Publication date in RUL: 01.03.2022

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Agriculture
• Shortened title: Agriculture
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2077-0472
• COBISS.SI-ID: 523634201

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 01.04.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: govedoreja, prireja mleka, kmetije, ankete, trg, politika, EU

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: Lifelong Learning Programme Leonardo da Vinci
• Project number: 2011-1-PL1-LEO05-19891
• Name: Interactive Strategic Management (ISM) methodology for improvement of agricultural entrepreneurship in Central-Eastern Europe

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: ERASMUS+ KA2
• Project number: 2015-1-PL1-KA202-016871
• Name: Entrepreneurship with vision