The survival and decline of small farms – the application of analogy in natural and social sciences

The work is an attempt to apply the method of analogy to describe phenomena and explain processes of an economic and socio-economic nature. The method of analogy was used to explain similarities in the course of selected processes and their consequences in the sphere of economics, taking phenomena observed in nature as a reference point. Economic sciences, as a relatively young field of knowledge and cognition, have been using analysis methods used in much older and better equipped natural sciences, mainly in physics and biology, for over a hundred years. The application of natural science methods to the analysis and description of economic processes is not only an original and creative thought process, allowing for a better understanding of economic processes, but also gives a chance to develop new knowledge and solutions stimulating desired economic processes. The subject of considerations in the presented study are mainly small farms, whose future as a group seems very uncertain. The conducted research using the method of analogy indicates that a chance for their survival may be a strategy based on the behavior of an omnivorous snail (diversification of income), gradually and slowly realizing its goal, hiding in situations of threat; as well as the behavior of a dove, i.e. a yielding entity, withdrawing from markets dominated by mass producers (hawks), not taking up the fight with the stronger ones, but looking for safe places (market niches) that are not the field of interest of mutually destructive predators. Such a philosophy of action fits well into the concepts of multifunctional agriculture, diversification of farm activities and increasing the involvement of small farms in the implementation of environmental functions and the development of high-quality food production.