The Identification and Formation of Clusters of Northeastern United States Farms Participating in Multifunctional Activities

The purpose of this research is to investigate factors impacting farmers’ decisions to engage in multifunctional activities, which are hypothesized to enhance the sustainability and prosperity of farms and their communities. To achieve this research goal, I will break it up into two specific objectives. The first objective is to identify statistically significant hot spots of farms participating in multifunctional activities (i.e., clusters of postal areas with highly correlated, large numbers of farms participating in multifunctional activities). The second objective is to investigate the variables that impact the spatial distribution of farms participating in multifunctional activities. The results of this research may have implications for policies related to encouraging farm participation in multifunctional activities