Publication

Farm economic sustainability in the european union: a pilot study

O'Donoghue, Cathal
; 
Devisme, Simon
; 
Ryan, Mary
; 
Conneely, Ricky
; 
Gillespie, Patrick
; 
Vrolijk, Hans
Identifiers
http://hdl.handle.net/10379/13223
https://doi.org/10.13025/27949
Repository DOI
10.7896/j.1631
Publication Date
2016-12-01
Keywords
farm viability, fadn, farm income, opportunity costs, pluriactivity, viability
Type
Article
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Citation
O'Donoghue, Cathal; Devisme, Simon; Ryan, Mary; Conneely, Ricky; Gillespie, Patrick; Vrolijk, Hans (2016). Farm economic sustainability in the european union: a pilot study. Studies in Agricultural Economics 118 (3), 163-171
Abstract
The measurement of farm economic sustainability has received intermittent academic interest in recent times, while the conceptual discussions are often quite limited. Moreover, this concept receives more attention at periods of diffi culty for the sector. The measurement of farm viability is an important precondition to enrich these discussions. Therefore, it is necessary to develop more comprehensive and detailed measurement techniques to provide more clarity on viability and vulnerability levels in the sector. This paper refocuses attention on this issue, using a pilot dataset collected at farm level across a range of EU Member States which facilitates the assessment of an additional category of viability, namely that of economically sustainable farms, i.e. farms that are economically vulnerable but which are deemed sustainable by the presence of off-farm income. Differences in viability and economic sustainability across the eight surveyed Member States are shown. The analysis is sensitive to the factors included in the measurement of viability as well as to the threshold income used to defi ne viability. Although this is a pilot study, it enhances our understanding of the factors affecting cross-country evaluation of viability and sustainability, and the policy instruments that could improve viability levels.
Funder
Publisher
Research Institute of Agricultural Economics
Publisher DOI
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Ireland
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Externally hosted open access publications with University of Galway authors (2)