The land is what matters: factors driving family farms to organic production in Poland

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse tendency of farms to switch from conventional to organic production.

Design/methodology/approach

The study used data on 6,229 individual farms, which in 2009–2016 continued to participate in the Polish FADN. Estimation of logit models allowed the authors to indicate, separately for each period in the years between 2009 and 2015, a set of characteristics influencing the decision of farms on the use of organic production.

Findings

The authors demonstrate that, first of all, land factors were of major importance when deciding on conversion to organic farming, with only the own land inputs (owned by the farm) having a positive impact on the transition of farms to organic production. But then the resource of the capital factor, identified with the assets owned by the farm, exercised a significant negative impact. Income derived from the family farm, although had a positive impact, did not significantly determine the farm’s decision on conversion to organic production. While support for agri-environmental purposes had a positive impact on the decision of farm to convert, the payments received under the direct payments affected this decision negatively. The tendency to start organic production is also conditioned regionally.

Research limitations/implications

The data of this study are limited in size, and limited to the Polish context.

Originality/value

The research setting for this paper is original; the study takes part in the discussion about factors of conversion to organic farming, on example of Poland and is a voice in the discussion on effective support for the development of organic farming in the context of sustainable development.

Citation

Chmielinski, P., Pawlowska, A., Bocian, M. and Osuch, D. (2019), "The land is what matters: factors driving family farms to organic production in Poland", British Food Journal, Vol. 121 No. 6, pp. 1354-1367. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-05-2018-0338