Financity and innovation in organic olive farming: A typological analysis

Stamatis Aggelopoulos, Chrysovalantis Karafillis, Alexandra Pavloudi, Evangelos Papanagiotou

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Organic farming is gaining increased recognition among stakeholder groups (farmers, consumers, environmentalists and politicians) as a model of environmental, social and economic sustainability in agriculture. However, the adoption of organic farming methods per se does not contribute towards improving the financity of agricultural farms. On the contrary, the adoption of innovations helps to increase productivity and profitability. On a macroeconomic level, technological change, as a result of the adoption of innovation, is one of the driving forces for an increase of overall productivity in agriculture. On the level of farms, the economic results of innovative farms are improved, helping them to surpass non-innovative farms, as regards their structure and economic efficiency. This improvement is due to the reduced production costs and the positive impact of innovative behaviour on increasing their economic outcome. The present paper focuses on the development of a typology for a sample of 177 farms practicing organic olive farming, and on the definition of relatively similar units-clusters, based on the calculation of important economic results. The main objective is to carry out an economic analysis of organic olive farming, and study the effect of the "innovation index" on the formation of the clusters of farms. On a second level, using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test, individual statistical significance tests are performed among the clusters of farms and the innovative groups, in order to examine the statistical differentiation of the economic results. The use of hierarchical cluster analysis has identified three clusters of organic olive farms, with corresponding economic results and innovative behaviour. Based on the final profile of the three clusters of farms, the effect of innovations on the financity of farms is examined, and specific agricultural policy measures are put forward, in order to improve their level of competitiveness.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)2465-2468
    Number of pages4
    JournalJournal of Food, Agriculture and Environment
    Volume11
    Issue number3-4
    Publication statusPublished - 2013

    Keywords

    • Financity
    • Hierarchical cluster analysis
    • Innovation
    • Organic olive farming

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