The conflict between capital-intensive agriculture, often called industrial agriculture, and sustainable farming is ongoing, and not because of Western European countries, where intensification is increasingly sustainable. It is caused by several million small farms in Central and Eastern Europe that must choose a long-term development path. This is also a dilemma for agricultural policy: Are small farms so environmentally friendly that they should play the role of ‘landscape guardians’ at the expense of public support and economic vegetation, or should they strive to improve productivity through investments? This study offers a methodological contribution to the value-based sustainability approach by computing indicators of environmental sustainable value (ESV). The authors have attempted to combine the value-oriented approach with frontier benchmarking. They then tested how the European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) schemes contribute to ESV using a long-term panel of regionally representative farms from Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) with regard to factor endowments, for the years 2004–2017. The seminal within–between specification was employed to control the time variant and time invariant space heterogeneity of European regions. The main finding is that higher investment support is beneficial to ESV. Regarding factor endowment influence, there was a positive impact of the capital–labour ratio. Except the cross-sectional impact of environmental subsidies, the payments exert a negative effect on ESV.
The objective of this paper is to identify the relationship between farm income and assets within the European Union (EU) in the context of economic and environmental sustainable development. The scientific context is connected to economic theory (the recognition of the nature of such a relationship, as well as the determination of whether sustainable development acts as a stimulant or destimulant under these conditions). The Farm Accounting Data Network system was employed in the article. The econometric models were estimated by panel data based on the reported results of the farms operations in EU member states for the period of 2004–2018. Accordingly, the relationship between income and assets is positive and statistically significant, but not very clear in the group of surveyed farms. Moreover, economic sustainability was found to positively influences the relationship between income and assets. In contrast, the relationship between incomes and assets was weakened. The situation is brought about by the intrinsic growth in the value of the land, as well as by the growing importance of non-productive assets. Thus, farmers in EU countries are becoming wealthier in terms of the value of their assets but, this is not reflected directly in their income. The reason is the growing importance of environmental and social functions in the agriculture the European Union. Greater skills in asset management at farm level are, therefore, required to mitigate the situation.
Summary The key aim of the article is to verify the hypothesis concerning convergence in the economic development of the EU member states, which is reflected in evening out differences in the economic development level of the EU member states. New member states develop faster than old member states. In the light of the presented results, economic convergence of the member states seems not to be homogenous. Thus, it can be provisionally stated that progress has been recorded as regards convergence of the member states economies, in particular since 2007, although it needs to be emphasised that differences between them are still significant.
The theory about the impact of farm size, income and assets on the environmental approach of farmers is ambiguous. We contribute to the existing discussion in two ways. Firstly, we look for the determinants of the environmental approach. Secondly, we treat farm size as a heterogeneous factor, affected not only by the value of assets but also flows of incomes. The main objective of the article is, therefore, to recognize the impact of assets and income on the environmental approach of agricultural producers. We analyze the results of surveys carried out in 2020 on a group of 120 farms from the Wielkopolska region (Poland), using structural equation modelling (generalized structural equation modelling (GSEM)-multiple indicators and multiple causes (MIMIC) model). Our results indicate that both the income and assets of the agricultural producers have a positive impact on their approach to the environment. However, to a greater extent, the farmer’s approach to the environment is influenced more by income than by assets. This may be influenced by the capitalization of subsidies in the price of agricultural land, which makes this element of farm assets detached from real processes. It is easier for farms with a higher income and assets to realize the orientation towards sustainability.
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