Subsistence and semi‐subsistence farming in selected EU new member states

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in ABSTRACT:Factor and cluster analysis are used to analyse the attitudes and perceptions of agricultural households in five EU New Member States towards farming, commercialisation, and barriers to and drivers for an increased integration in agricultural markets. The contribution of unsold output to the total household income is valued. A stepwise linear regression is employed to detect important variables explaining the degree of agricultural market integration of farm households. The analysis indicates that subsistence farming is of utmost importance for the rural poor, and particularly in Bulgaria and Romania. The proportion of consumption from own production, manual cultivation techniques and distance to an urban centre negatively affect output sales. Rural development policies targeted at rural physical and market infrastructure might relieve some of these constraints. KEYWORDS: IntroductionTwenty years after the start of the economic transition in Central and Eastern Europe, small scale subsistence and semi-subsistence farms are still wide-spread. The resilience of these farms has raised a heated debate about their role and future, particularly in relation to the EU membership, as producers in the New Member States (NMS) have to compete in the single EU market.In the literature, there is no agreement about the role and prospects of subsistence farming. One school of thought treats subsistence and semi-subsistence farms in Europe as an unwanted phenomenon and an impediment to rural growth. Subsistence farming has been associated with a traditional technology, inefficiency, and a use of scarce resources which could have been allocated to a more efficient use (Kostov and Lingard, 2004). Often, subsistence has also been related to poverty (Mathijs and Noev, 2004).However, subsistence farming could be considered as an important survival strategy, not only in low but also in middle income countries, during periods of drastic economic reform and economic recession. Brüntrup and Heidhues (2002) argue that subsistence farming is a way for people to survive under difficult and risky conditions, and to cope with high transaction costs in fragile economies.In the economic literature the persistence of subsistence farming has been explained by market failure and particularly high transaction costs. As different farm households face different transaction costs, the evidence is that subsistence and commercial farms co-exist (e.g. Key et a...

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