IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jagris/v14y2024i7p1088-d1429965.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic, Social, and Environmental Factors Impacting Resilience and Disturbances of Lithuanian Family Farms

Author

Listed:
  • Algimantas Kurlavičius

    (Department of Business and Rural Development Management, Vytautas Magnus University, 53361 Kaunas, Lithuania)

  • Jan Žukovskis

    (Department of Business and Rural Development Management, Vytautas Magnus University, 53361 Kaunas, Lithuania)

  • Dariusz Gozdowski

    (Department of Biometry, Institute of Agriculture, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Nowoursynowska 159, 02-776 Warsaw, Poland)

  • Elżbieta Wójcik-Gront

    (Department of Biometry, Institute of Agriculture, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Nowoursynowska 159, 02-776 Warsaw, Poland)

Abstract

Climate change, changes in the natural environment, changing markets, price volatility, etc. pose tension and threats to the future of European Union farms. The uncertain future of family farms requires farm resilience—the ability to survive, adapt, and grow in the face of turbulent change. The limited resilience of family farms has become an important concern for rural and agricultural policy. The main goal of this work is to identify disturbances affecting Lithuanian family farms, assess their influence, investigate the general resilience of Lithuanian family farms, propose measures to reduce the vulnerability of farms, and increase the general resilience and sustainability. We used a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to conduct the research. Survey research was conducted using a semi-structured expert interview in which various types of variables were collected. The survey questionnaire, consisting of 38 groups of questions, was sent by email to 500 randomly selected family farmers in January 2024 and collected in the same month. The statistical analysis of the data from the 205 duly filled-out questionnaires was carried out using correlation analysis. In this article, we apply the concept of general resilience of the family farm in the direction of robustness, adaptability, and transformability. We identify the main factors influencing the general resilience of the family farm and study the main attributes of the resilience of family farms. We find some links between family farm characteristics, vulnerability factors, and general resilience capabilities, and we make several proposals to increase family farms’ resilience. The obtained results prove that higher education, larger farm sizes, higher agricultural sales, and employment of permanent workers are associated with better resilience. Furthermore, increasing environmentally friendly practices positively impacts resilience. Older farms and farmers, longer durations of farming activity, and risk-averse behaviors tend to decrease resilience. Due to local and global circumstances, economic and social changes have occurred very quickly in recent years, so the results obtained in the study may not be valid in the long term. Similar surveys after several years will be necessary to study the resilience of Lithuanian farms, including deeper economic analyses that evaluate factors such as price sensitivity, the level of farm debt, and market access.

Suggested Citation

  • Algimantas Kurlavičius & Jan Žukovskis & Dariusz Gozdowski & Elżbieta Wójcik-Gront, 2024. "Economic, Social, and Environmental Factors Impacting Resilience and Disturbances of Lithuanian Family Farms," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-22, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:14:y:2024:i:7:p:1088-:d:1429965
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/7/1088/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/7/1088/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Juraté SAVICKIENÉ & Astrida MICEIKIENÉ, 2018. "Sustainable economic development assessment model for family farms," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 64(12), pages 527-535.
    2. Dardonville, Manon & Urruty, Nicolas & Bockstaller, Christian & Therond, Olivier, 2020. "Influence of diversity and intensification level on vulnerability, resilience and robustness of agricultural systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    3. Daniel El Chami & André Daccache & Maroun El Moujabber, 2020. "How Can Sustainable Agriculture Increase Climate Resilience? A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-23, April.
    4. Fernando M. Aragón & Francisco Oteiza & Juan Pablo Rud, 2021. "Climate Change and Agriculture: Subsistence Farmers' Response to Extreme Heat," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 1-35, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aragón, Fernando M. & Restuccia, Diego & Rud, Juan Pablo, 2022. "Are small farms really more productive than large farms?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    2. Sheng, Yu & Zhao, Shiji & Yang, Sansi, 2021. "Weather shocks, adaptation and agricultural TFP: A cross-region comparison of Australian Broadacre farms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    3. Francisco Costa & Fabien Forge & Jason Garred & João Paulo Pessoa, 2023. "The Impact of Climate Change on Risk and Return in Indian Agriculture," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 85(1), pages 1-27, May.
    4. Díaz, Juan-José & Saldarriaga, Victor, 2023. "A drop of love? Rainfall shocks and spousal abuse: Evidence from rural Peru," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    5. Anna Josephson & Jeffrey D. Michler & Talip Kilic & Siobhan Murray, 2024. "The Mismeasure of Weather: Using Remotely Sensed Earth Observation Data in Economic Context," Papers 2409.07506, arXiv.org.
    6. N. W. Arnell & A. Freeman, 2021. "The effect of climate change on agro-climatic indicators in the UK," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-26, March.
    7. Chauvin, Juan Pablo, 2024. "Local Education Spending and Migration: Evidence from a Large Redistribution Program," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13497, Inter-American Development Bank.
    8. repec:ags:aaea22:335522 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Jeffrey D. Michler & Dewan Abdullah Al Rafi & Jonathan Giezendanner & Anna Josephson & Valerien O. Pede & Elizabeth Tellman, 2024. "Impact Evaluations in Data Poor Settings: The Case of Stress-Tolerant Rice Varieties in Bangladesh," Papers 2409.02201, arXiv.org.
    10. Harkness, Caroline & Areal, Francisco J. & Semenov, Mikhail A. & Senapati, Nimai & Shield, Ian F. & Bishop, Jacob, 2023. "Towards stability of food production and farm income in a variable climate," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    11. Teresa Rodríguez-Espinosa & Jose Navarro-Pedreño & Ignacio Gómez Lucas & María Belén Almendro Candel & Ana Pérez Gimeno & Manuel Jordán Vidal & Iliana Papamichael & Antonis A. Zorpas, 2022. "Environmental Risk from Organic Residues," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    12. Gruener, Sven & Soliev, Ilkhom & Pirscher, Frauke, 2024. "Multiple crises in mind, biodiversity out of sight? Insights from a behavioral study in Germany," OSF Preprints q4upd, Center for Open Science.
    13. De Lapparent, Alice & Sabatier, Rodolphe & Paut, Raphaël & Martin, Sophie, 2023. "Perennial transitions from market gardening towards mixed fruit tree - vegetable systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    14. Luis Guillermo Becerra-Valbuena, 2021. "Droughts and Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change," Working Papers halshs-03420657, HAL.
    15. Wang, Teng & Yi, Fujin & Liu, Huilin & Wu, Ximing & Zhong, Funing, 2021. "Can Agricultural Mechanization Have a Mitigation Effect on China's Yield Variability?," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315098, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Emediegwu, Lotanna E. & Ubabukoh, Chisom L., 2023. "Re-examining the impact of annual weather fluctuations on global livestock production," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    17. Zhang, Dongna & Dai, Xingyu & Wang, Qunwei & Lau, Chi Keung Marco, 2023. "Impacts of weather conditions on the US commodity markets systemic interdependence across multi-timescales," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    18. François Bareille & Raja Chakir, 2024. "Structural identification of weather impacts on crop yields: Disentangling agronomic from adaptation effects," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 106(3), pages 989-1019, May.
    19. Thomas Slijper & Yann de Mey & P Marijn Poortvliet & Miranda P M Meuwissen, 2022. "Quantifying the resilience of European farms using FADN," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 49(1), pages 121-150.
    20. Dang, Hai-Anh H & Hallegatte, Stephane & Trinh, Trong-Anh, 2023. "Does Global Warming Worsen Poverty and Inequality? An Updated Review," IZA Discussion Papers 16570, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. He, Xi & Chen, Zhenshan, 2022. "Weather, cropland expansion, and deforestation in Ethiopia," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:14:y:2024:i:7:p:1088-:d:1429965. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.