Land structure as a determinant of legal entity dairy farm typologies : evidence from Croatia

Petrač, Maja (author), Zmaić, Krunoslav (author), Kranjac, David (author), Pečurlić, Lucija (author), Žgajnar, Jaka (author)

The paper presents the results of a cluster analysis conducted on all 62 legal dairy farms in Croatia. The aim is to group legal entity dairy farms into smaller homogeneous groups with similar characteristics according to a given variable. Such farm groups will serve to define typical farms that will be the basis for an in-depth assessment of the current state and further development of the Croatian dairy sector. The four key variables used in the cluster analysis relate to the structure of the total utilized agricultural area (UAA). The cluster analysis identified five different groups of legal dairy farms, and 90% of legal dairy farms belong to a cluster of medium-sized farms with strong development potential. It was shown that on legal dairy farms, agricultural land is mainly arable, with corn as the main crop. They show a highly specialized structure focused almost exclusively on field crops, unlike family dairy farms that show greater diversification (meadows, grasslands, karst pastures). Based on these findings, the development of farm models using mathematical programming is planned. The analysis relies on real sector data provided by the Croatian Agriculture and Food Agency and was conducted using hierarchical and non-hierarchical clustering methods in IBM SPSS Statistics. The results provide a solid basis for designing farm-level models and contribute to future research and evidence-based policymaking in the Croatian dairy sector.

• Language: English
• Keywords: land structure, legal dairy farms, cluster analysis, farm model
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 112-121
• Numbering: Vol.32, no. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-184604
• UDC: 631.41:631.1.017.1-047.44(497.5)
• ISSN on article: 1848-8080
• DOI: 10.18047/poljo.32.1.13
• COBISS.SI-ID: 284414979
• Publication date in RUL: 10.07.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Poljoprivreda
• Shortened title: Poljoprivreda
• Publisher: Poljoprivredni fakultet : =, The Faculty of Agriculture, Poljoprivredni institut Osijek : =, The Osijek Agricultural Institut
• ISSN: 1848-8080
• COBISS.SI-ID: 523602457

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.

Secondary language

• Language: Croatian
• Title: Struktura zemljišta kao determinanta tipologije pravnih subjekata na mliječnim farmama
• Keywords: lastnosti tal, kmetije, kmetijski model

Projects

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Project number: -
• Name: Održivi i kružni razvoj mesnog govedarstva u okviru agrarnog sektora RH