Profiles of small-scale dairy farms assessed by socioeconomic and farm management practices: a case study from Poland

Agricultural systems vary worldwide due to location, socioeconomic conditions, and management practices. Understanding the patterns and key factors that lead to differences between farms is crucial to providing the best support for their development. In our study, we interviewed farmers who operate small-scale dairy farms (with 1-5 cows) in a major agricultural region of Poland specifically, the voivodships Małopolskie and Podkarpackie, to understand how socioeconomic factors and farm management practices shape the diversity of farm profiles, and we evaluated our results using cluster analysis. Our findings confirmed the diversity among small-scale farming systems, allowing the identification of three distinct farm profiles. One of these clusters reflects part-time farmers characterized by low agricultural incomes, another long-standing peasant or hobby farms, while the smallest cluster referred to more professionalized agricultural systems. The key factors that characterized the different farm profiles were related to animal production (i.e. grazing time), infrastructure (i.e. manure storage facilities), farm size (i.e. land area), farming practices (i.e. mineral fertiliser use) and farmer's experience. The analysis also identified various socioeconomic factors that influenced the prospects for the continuity of different farm profiles, pointing out the need to devise support policies very specifically addressing the respective needs.