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The paradoxical picture of Greek agriculture according to which small family farms with fragmented agricultural land remain in the productive system, as well as the increasing feminisation of agriculture and the ageing of farm heads is currently under consideration. Drawing on field research in a rural area of northern Greece, we focus on the official farm heads' cohort and investigate aspects of their involvement in farming, dwelling choices and farmland ownership. The basic aim is to convey an authentic picture of the reality of family farming in modern Greece that often lies concealed behind official figures and myths. In so doing both a quantitative analysis (two-step cluster analysis) of 1,295 farm heads and interview narratives were used. The fiction created in rural Greece and the heterogeneity of farm heads (absent or present from the village or the farm, or both) is the result of cross-cutting issues: administrative and policy framework, the proliferation of rural development programmes, the way that ownership of the farmland is conflated with headship of the farm, the spatial mobility of the rural population, multiple dwelling-places and the struggle of the family farm to preserve its agricultural identity and survive through times of rural restructuring and socioeconomic instability.

Differences between male and female entrepreneurs provide compelling reasons to study the latter separately. Especially in rural areas, research shows that women are a remarkable and unexplored source of the labor force. Nevertheless, few researchers have examined rural women and the issues pertaining to their entrepreneurship separately. The contribution of this study to the debate of women entrepreneurship is the closer examination of women in Greek rural areas. This research aims to examine factors that must be considered independently with recognition to the variances of rural areas with different geomorphologic and economic profiles. The characteristics of women entrepreneurship in Greek rural areas and the women's motives for the undertaking of the entrepreneurial activity are used to identify a typology of women entrepreneurs in the Greek countryside.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate an innovation concerning a short food supply chain (SFSC) created by a newly established producers’ cooperative in Greece that sells fresh milk to consumers via automatic vending machines; the consumers’ response toward this innovation; and the financial performance of the cooperative. Design/methodology/approach The case study focused on consumer’s attitudes toward the cooperative’s fresh milk sold by automatic vending machines and the cooperative’s financial performance. A structured questionnaire was answered by 912 consumers in Thessaloniki during 2015 and analyzed using the IBM SPSS STATISTICS program, version 22. Additionally, the cooperative’s financial data (2012–2015) were used in order to calculate its financial performance. Findings The authors identified five unique consumer categories according to consumer motive, of which social motives are considered in the sample as the most important. The cooperative’s financial indicators are satisfying, especially taking into consideration the severe economic crisis in Greece over the past years. Research limitations/implications It is difficult to evaluate Thesgala as there exists no similar producer cooperative in SFSCs in Greece. The cooperative is recently established and therefore financial indicators represent a short time period. Practical implications Producers, especially small ones in remote or peri-urban areas, can be involved in a SFCS and reach consumers via their cooperatives (or by founding a cooperative). Producer’s cooperatives can include SFSCs in their strategic planning in order to stimulate changes in the food system for the benefit of both producers and consumers. Social implications Policy makers should orient the appropriate policy measures to support SFSCs for the benefit of society as a whole. Originality/value The research investigates an SFSC that was created as a producer’s initiative (not a consumer’s) via their cooperative. It advances knowledge of how to initiate changes in the food system.

Abstract

La gouvernance des terres communes, considérées comme un bien commun, a toujours été une question d'importance majeure pour l'économie et la cohésion sociale en zones rurales. En articulation avec les caractéristiques géophysiques et écologiques, les conditions politiques, économiques et sociales (système politique, systèmes de production, rapports sociaux) définissent à chaque période les modalités de la gouvernance foncière ; elles influencent dans une large mesure la durabilité des systèmes de production locaux et sont garantes de la paix sociale.