The agricultural sector ensures food security and is a major source of employment, income, and economic activity in rural areas. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) considers that family farms are the key to a sustainable future in Europe and Central Asia. In Romania, small farms represent the pillar on which Romanian society has been developed. Although the trend has been a reduction in the number of small farms and an increase in the number of large farms, the Government of Romania understands the importance of small farms and therefore supports them through policies involving direct payments, rural development instruments, special initiatives, and loans and outstanding obligations, among others, which focus on increasing their economic performance. The aim of our research was to determine the relationship between farmers’ motivation, their job satisfaction, and the farm economic performance in the case of small Romanian farms. The research sample consisted of 900 small farms (utilized agricultural area (UAA): under 20 ha; standard output (SO): under EUR 15,000). The data obtained after applying the questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 and Amos 24.0. For the exploratory factor analysis, values of Bartlett’s test of sphericity, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were calculated for each dimension of the proposed model. The hypothesis that motivation, job satisfaction, and farm economic performance directly and positively influence each other was confirmed. An important finding was that the correlation coefficient between farmers’ motivation and farm economic performance was ρ = 0.78, while that for the relation between farmers’ job satisfaction and farm economic performance was ρ = 0.53, which was similar to the correlation coefficient calculated for the relationship between farmers’ motivation and farmers’ job satisfaction. This result allows us to conclude that the influence of farmers’ motivation factors on farm economic performance is stronger than the influence of job satisfaction in the case of Romanian farmers on small farms. This might explain why, although work in agriculture is considered to be worse than an office job and the people that work in agriculture are sometimes stigmatized and receive lower incomes, there are still very strong motivators for Romanian farmers to continue their work in agriculture. This is proven by the fact that Romania has the highest number of small farms in Europe, and this number is not decreasing.
E-commerce’s latest trends, highlighted by the global phenomena of the COVID-19 pandemic, explicitly show substantial changes in the online consumers’ behavior as well. More and more specialists are talking about the emergence of a new paradigm in consumption, and of possible evolutions toward sustainable consumption. The purpose of this research is to investigate how the antecedents of e-loyalty have changed their effect on consumer attitudes and perceptions of e-commerce sites. The results, obtained through a structural model of 523 validated questionnaires of Romanian consumers of electronic and household appliances, show the importance of the effect of website accessibility, a factor that, until recently, exerted an influence mediated by other elements grouped either under the umbrella of site quality or site design. The model validated after the analysis shows the direct effect of the accessibility of the websites on e-loyalty, satisfaction and trust of the consumers. Based on the results, the value of this study lies in the fact that it presents arguments on how the boost of e-commerce systems leads to sales processes’ sustainability improvement and, to the same extent, the improvement of the ways for reporting sustainability using IT tools (online databases with customers, software integrated into e-commerce platforms, electronic financial management).
The role of small farms in agricultural production is particularly important for less developed economies, with a high share of agriculture in GDP and a lower level of national income. These economies have a high share of small-scale farms in the total number of registered farms, measured by the size of an agricultural holding. The paper thoroughly analyses the distribution channels of the agricultural products of Moldova (MDA), Romania (ROM), and Serbia (SRB). The data sources for this analysis are taken from the survey conducted on 1 608 small-scale farms in the above-mentioned countries in 2019. The aim of the paper is to develop a model that could enable the structured analysis of distribution channels. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was used for efficient assessment and as a criterion for choosing the most appropriate distribution channel. The results of the analysis show that small-scale farms mostly place their products in green markets and processing plants and that the quality and the price of agricultural products are the dominant criteria for the selection of a channel. The results of the applied model indicate that the model is stable and that small-scale farms can choose the optimal distribution channel by using this study.
Economic sustainability plays an important role in shaping conditions for economic growth and social development. The importance of answering the question about the level of sustainability of family farms results from the fact that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, apart from exceptions (e.g. the Czech Republic and Slovakia), are characterized by a fragmented agrarian structure. Hence, the main goal of this article was to answer two questions: 1) whether the countries of Central and Eastern Europe differ in the level of economic sustainability of small family farms; and 2) whether the same socioeconomic factors impact similarly on the level of economic sustainability of small family farms from countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The study was based on surveys conducted in small family farms: in 2018 from Poland (672 farms) and in 2019 in four other countries (Lithuania; 999 farms, Romania; 834 farms, Serbia; 523 farms, Moldova; 530 farms). The publication includes a critical analysis of the literature, structure analysis and correlation analysis. The results show the occurrence of large differences between the economic sustainability of small family farms from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The research indicates that the larger the area of a small-scale family farm, the greater its economic sustainability. The productivity of these farms increases with their economic sustainability. The results also prove a negative relationship between the age of the farmer and the economic sustainability of their farm in all analysed countries. These trends were found in all analysed countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The results of the analyses support the conclusion that agricultural policy instruments aimed at increasing the economic sustainability of small family farms should lead to: land consolidation, a decrease in the age of farm owners through generational changes, and a decrease in employment in agriculture, which would lead to a reduction in labour input in the agricultural sector.
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