Differences in farmers’ perception of opportunities for farm development

Figures & data

Table 1 Average score on the presented opportunities for farm development for the four clusters of dairy farmers. Scale 1–5 (‘1-certainly no’ to ‘5-certainly yes’).

Clusters	1	2	3	4
Opportunities for farm development^1	Maximising production	Optimising resources	Diversifying production	Ending production
	n = 29	n = 21	n = 21	n = 8
Intensive dairy, high milk yield/ha and per cow	4.2	2.4	2.5	1.8
Joint farming with 1 or more other dairy farms	3.3	1.8	2.7	2.6
Relocating outside Kampereiland	2.6	1.6	2.2	3.1
Land-based dairy, mostly own feed	2.3	4.2	4.2	3.5
Organic dairy	1.3	1.7	2.5	1.6
Dairy plus another company	1.9	1.5	2.9	3.0
Dairy plus income from nature conservation	2.5	2.8	3.5	2.4
Average^2 of 4 opportunities: Dairy plus: −processing own milk, −on-farm costumers, −care, −recreation	1.5	1.3	2.9	1.4
Average^3 of 2 opportunities: End dairy plus: −other company, −other income source	1.4	1.4	1.9	3.4

The opportunities with their values represented in bold were used to identify the farm development strategy.

1 Two opportunities are excluded from the table: ‘dairy&off-farm job’ and ‘dairy&energy production’ as the differences between clusters for these opportunities were small.

2 The four opportunities on on-farm diversification are presented as average, differences within clusters were small.

3 The two opportunities on ending dairy farming are presented as average, differences within clusters were small.

Table 3 Farm strategy as preferred by the farmers who are part of the four clusters of farm development strategies deemed viable by dairy farmers (based on perceived Room for Manoeuvre).

			Cluster	1	2	3	4
Farm strategy preferred		Assymp. Sign. Chi Square test	Total	Maximising production	Optimising resources	Diversifying production	Ending production
1	Maximising production	0.05	35	18	9	7	1
2	Optimising resources	0.00	17	1	10	5	1
3	Diversifying production	0.01	6	1	0	5	0
4	Ending production	0.01	3	0	0	1	2
5	Other opportunities chosen^2	^3	18	9^1	2^1	3	4
	Total		79	29	21	21	8

The values represented in bold are the number of farmers where the farm strategy preferred corresponds with the farm strategy deemed viable according to their pRfM.

1 Including 1 missing value.

2 Opportunities which may be combined with all four clusters.

3 0.25/0.22/0.32/0.93/0.42.

Table 2 Production characteristics for the four clusters 1985–2012 (×1000 kg).

	milk/cow			milk/ha			milk/farm
Cluster^1	‘85	‘12	delta%	‘85	‘12	delta%	‘85	‘12	delta%
1	6.7	9.0	34	14.3	17.9	25	437	893	104
2	6.8	8.3	22	12.4	14.1	14	346	543	57
3	6.7	7.5	12	12.2	11.9	−2	366	622	70
4	6.7	7.2	7	12.2	10.7	−12	334	410	23

1 1-Maximising production, 2-Optimising resources, 3-Diversifying production, 4-Ending production.