The determinants of selling through a short food supply chains: an application to the French case

A Short Food Supply Chain is a marketing channel whose developments answers the emerging demand of both public policy and consumers’ requirement mainly in terms of quality. Based on the exhaustive census of all French farms in 2010, the aim of the article is to understand what are the individual and structural determinants of selling through a short food supply chain for producers: are there some factors leading to adopt such marketing channel? To answer this question, the resource-based view is mobilized. This theory highlights the relationship between the diversification of marketing channels and the individual characteristics of farmers and the structural characteristics of their farm. Since the choice observed is a dichotomous one, a logit model is implemented to identify determinants of short food supply chain adoption. This analysis lets underline differences observed between farmers who never sell though a short supply chain from the others in terms of both individual and structural specificities. Econometric results highlight that selling through this marketing channel is a commercial strategy implemented by younger and more educated farmers. Moreover, these farmers are installed on smaller farms. Even smaller, the implementation of a short food supply chain requires relatively more workforce. As a matter of fact, implementing such marketing channel translates into a need of workforce that is higher than for others farms and more precisely permanent workforce