Producer and farm characteristics, type of product, location: Determinants of on‐farm and off‐farm direct sales by farmers

Abstract

Direct sales are a widespread and important typology of the socalled alternative food networks. They can take two basic forms: consumers going to buy agricultural products at the farm (on-farm sales) and farmers selling their products in urban areas. We investigate the territorial distribution of direct sales practices (on-farm and off-farm) in Piedmont (Italy) and we assess the main determinants of these choices via probit models, separately for on-farm and off-farm sales. The explanatory variables comprise structural characteristics of the farms, type of farming, characteristics of the operators and of their products, and the proximity to urban and commercial areas. The most important factor affecting these choices is the type of farming (TF). The effect of other variables differs according to the TF. Conditional on it, other significant variables are generally farm location, organic farming and, especially for on-farm direct sales, the complementarity with agro-tourism and recreational activities. Operators' and farm characteristics are found to affect the choice of selling directly rather weakly. [EconLit citations: Q13, Q12, R12].

Factors affecting farmers’ decisions to participate in direct marketing: A case study of cherry growers in the Kemalpasa District of Izmir, Turkey

“…This result reveals that direct marketing options are more appropriate for semi-specialized farms. This result supports findings by Aguglia et al (2009), Detre et al (2011), Park et al (2011), and Corsi et al (2014), who concluded that as farms had become more specialized, they had a lower likelihood to market through DTC outlets. This result is also consistent with the findings of Park et al (2014) who concluded that farmers engaged in direct sales only tend to market a greater diversity of crops and have a larger variation in the earnings shares of those crops compared with farmers with no direct sales.…”

“…The fully-specialized farms which had low crop diversity did not generally want to take risk to sell directly to consumers due to lack of knowledge and experience. As seen from the literature review, this hypothesis was also supported by the findings of Aguglia et al (2009), Detre et al (2011), Park et al (2011, 2014), and Corsi et al (2014) who concluded that as farms had become more specialized, they had a lower likelihood to market through DTC outlets.…”

“…There is no study that has actually been carried out to determine the factors that influence farmers’ decisions to participate in direct marketing in Turkey. However, few studies that have been carried out to date have analyzed the factors that influence farmers’ decisions to participate in direct marketing (Gilg and Battershill, 1999; Monson et al, 2008; Aguglia et al, 2009; Auld et al, 2009; Corsi et al, 2009, 2014; Nyaupane and Gillespie, 2010; Timmons and Wang, 2010; Detre et al, 2011; Park et al, 2011, 2014; Uematsu and Mishra, 2011; Sage and Goldberger, 2012; Wolanin, 2013; Benedek et al, 2014; Park, 2015; Muthini, 2015).…”

“…Corsi et al (2014) investigated the determinants of the choice of farmers to sell their products directly to consumers. They concluded that operators’ and farm characteristics were found to affect the choice of selling directly, but rather weakly.…”

Introducing of Online Channel and Management Strategy for Green Agri-food Supply Chain based on Pick-Your-Own Operations

“…This grants customers access to fresher and heathier agri-foods [11,12]. In addition, consumers can enjoy the PYO experience [2,3,11,12,13], and the picking experience is also a selling point. Finally, PYO operations are also economically profitable for farmers.…”