The Role of the Start-Up Aid for Young Farmers in the Adoption of Innovative Agricultural Activities: The Case of Aloe Vera

Abstract

The poor generational renewal has been identified as a key issue for the EU policy that undermines the restructuring of the agricultural sector and the revitalisation of rural areas. The start-up aid for young farmers is one of the main EU-driven policy measures that try to mitigate this trend, by facilitating the initial investment of young newcomers in agriculture. At the same time, innovative crops with appealing characteristics are proposed as promising alternatives with high socioeconomic and low environmental impacts. Recently, a draft new call of the start-up aid for young farmers measure has been set under public consultation in Greece, which significantly alters the requirements and the level of support of the beneficiaries, compared to the previous one. The aim of this study is to explore the consequences of this change to the desirability to invest in the organic aloe vera crop, one of the leading innovating crops in Greece. In this study, taking into consideration the embedded risk and uncertainty, we utilise a stochastic version of the Net Present Value (NPV) analysis, a common discount cash flows method to detect the desirability of an investment. Results indicate that the potential alteration of the start-up aid for young farmers deteriorates the desirability of this investment and thus prevents farmers from its adoption. The analysis provides useful insights by highlighting risk factors and the possible impacts of policy measures on the desirability of innovative crops; thus, it can be useful both for investors and policymakers.

Investigating Farmers’ Attitudes towards Co-Existence of Agriculture and Renewable Energy Production

“…Particularly, the mean age of those who were willing to adopt AV (40.5 ± 10.1 years) is significantly lower than those who did not adopt (49.4 ± 12.3 years). The present finding agrees with previous outcomes, suggesting that younger ages are more willing to undertake the risk of participation in innovative agricultural practices [10,11].…”

Assessment of Farmers' Attitudes Toward Pest Control Services Provided by Birds

“…The probability of farmers accepting to adopt the pest regulation by insectivorous birds was modeled as a function of their profile and variables related to their perceptions towards conservation and economic benefits provided by birds. The present findings agree with previous outcomes suggest that lower ages are generally associated with higher willingness to undertake the risk of participation in innovative agricultural practices [21,22]. Farmers' educational attainment is a quite common explanatory variable in the literature and is found to have a positive impact in the current survey, on the adoption of eco-friendly approaches in the farms [23,24,25].…”

The Survival of Family Farms: Socioemotional Wealth (SEW) and Factors Affecting Intention to Continue the Business

“…Zagata and Sutherland [32] have argued that the low proportion of young people on farms is perceived as a loss of potential when it comes to creating more efficient, competitive, and sustainable farms in accordance with the demands derived from the environment and the sector itself. In the EU, the continuous decline in the number of young farmers is considered one of the main drawbacks of EU agriculture [33].…”