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Farm economic sustainability in the European Union: A pilot study
O'Donoghue, Cathal Devisme, Simon Ryan, Mary Conneely, Ricky Gillespie, Patrick Vrolijk, Hans
O'Donoghue, Cathal
Devisme, Simon
Ryan, Mary
Conneely, Ricky
Gillespie, Patrick
Vrolijk, Hans
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2016-12-01
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O'Donoghue, Cathal and Devisme, Simon and Ryan, Mary and Conneely, Ricky and Gillespie, Patrick (2016) Farm economic sustainability in the European Union: A pilot study. STUDIES IN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, 118 (3). pp. 163-171. ISSN 1418-2106
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.