Assessment of the Economic Viability of Family Farms in the Countries of the European Union

Puslapiai nurodyti pagal pataisytą leidinįDecline in the viability of agricultural businesses entities is a global problem. This problem has already been identified a few decades ago, the political decisions that had to change the situation were taken in the world, but the negative trends in the agricultural business are still going on, and the situation is not improving. It is difficult to describe the concept of economic viability of family farm properly, because it depends on certain aspects of assessment or objectives, and therefore, the economic viability of family farms in the scientific literature (Scott Colman, 2008; Scott Colman, 2008a; Adelaja, Sullivan, 1998; Koleda, Lace, 2009; BOSSEL, 2001) is defined in different ways. J. Scott (2005), M. Morehart (2000), J. Zeddies (1991) believe that there are many and different approaches to the economic viability of the family farm, but they can all be combined into three main groups describing the economic viability: weak, moderate or strong farms of economic viability. The complex assessment of economic viability of family farm consist of index.Index consists of economic efficiency and solvency sub-indices. In pursuance of this objective, analysis of scientific literature and synthesis, deduction and induction as well as other general research methods were invoked. The complex index of economic viability of family farm was developed based on previous research and operationalization method. Empirical research methodology was developed based on the analysis of the data normalization, confirmatory factor analysis, factor data analysis, analysis of correlation and regression relation as well as descriptive statistics methods. Therefore, after the analysis of weaknesses of the assessment methodologies of economic viability of family farms in this study, the complex index of economic viability of the family farm was developed and its applicability in the EU countries was tested empirically (EU - 28).[...]Vytauto Didžiojo universitetasŽemės ūkio akademij