Business environment and agricultural support schemes have changed after Lithuania joined the EU. The data comparison of Agricultural Censuses of 2003 and 2010 shows that during the analysis period the number of farmers’ farms that are larger than 1 ha decreased by one fourth. However, to date there has been scarce research on the analysis of economic viability changes in this category of farms and on the determination of the most vulnerable agricultural areas.
The study is aiming at establishing the methodology and conducting the analysis of Lithuanian farmers’ farms viability.
The following tasks were raised:
- To analyse the conception of viability in agriculture and on farm level, discuss evaluation indicators and methods, and select a set of criteria to conduct research on viability of Lithuanian farmers’ farms.
- To analyse economic viability of farmers’ farms comparing the situation before joining the EU and the current state of agriculture.
- To provide the results of the survey on Lithuanian farmers’ attitudes towards their farm viability and identify the factors that influence viability.
The study deals with the conception of viability in agriculture and on farm level, applied evaluation indicators and methods, discusses bottle neck problems of estimation and identifies promising directions of research. The results of scientific literature review were used in two complementary researches: 1) The comparison of Lithuanian commercial farmers farms’ economic viability situation before joining the EU and the current status of agriculture; 2) The survey of farmers’ attitudes towards key viability issues of their farms.
The evaluation of Lithuanian farms’ economic viability is based on three main factors of long-term viability of agriculture: size of farm, type of farming, age of farmers. The developed method discloses changes in main characteristics of selected groups of farms before joining the EU and the current status of Lithuanian agriculture. The proposed method shows links between the factors of the long-term viability and the main results of economic viability. The research compares the current situation in Lithuanian agriculture (2011-2013) to the situation in 2001-2003.
The survey of Lithuanian farmers’ attitudes allows us to explore links between different time horizons of economic viability, three main factors of long-term viability of agriculture, and other non-financial criteria, which were identified implementing literature review. The survey shows the current situation of viability of agriculture and complements the results of economic viability research allowing to provide well-founded conclusions about the most vulnerable areas of agriculture.
Keywords: viability, agriculture, farm.
Jurkėnaitė, N. 2015. Lietuvos ūkininkų ūkių gyvybingumo pokyčiai: Mokslo studija. Vilnius: Lietuvos agrarinės ekonomikos institutas. 73 p.: iliustr., santr. angl. (online) ISBN 978-9955-481-52-2.