Characterising objectives profiles of Costa Rican dairy farmers

Farmers' objectives and the factors affecting them were studied in 91 dairy farms in Costa Rica. Objective's hierarchies were studied using Rokeach's technique with a mixture of personal, economic and familiar goals. A canonical correlation analysis was performed to find out simple and canonical correlations between farmers'/farms' characteristics and objective priorities. Factor analysis combined with a cluster analysis was used to reduce the number of variables involved and to define groups of farmers with similar economic, personal and familiar and overall objective profiles. A multiple correspondence analysis was used to graphically represent the relationships between farmers'/farms' characteristics and objective profiles. Results showed that economic goals were the most important for the majority of farmers. Low to medium significant simple correlations and one medium to high canonical correlation were found, showing that age, educational level, the distance of the farm to population centres, the level of dedication and pasture area were the characteristics that had the largest impact on the arrangement of objectives. The overall cluster analysis confirmed that economic oriented farmers were more frequent in the population. However, farmers with personal and familiar profiles were also found. It was concluded that the farmers'/farms' characteristics, although significant, explained a small proportion of the variation in the objective hierarchies. Nevertheless, well-defined groups of farmers could be found. These groups showed that objective profiles were very heterogeneous, with around 50% of farmers attached to economic objectives