Abstract
Small- and medium-sized family farms are places to live and sources of income for about half of the population. The aim of this analysis was to determine the relationship between eco-efficiency and human capital efficiency on small- and medium-sized family farms. The analysis was carried out using an economic measure (value of agricultural production per work hour calculated per hectare) and two synthetic measures (human capital and environmental measures). The synthetic measures were determined using the TOPSIS-CRITIC method by defining weights for variables used in the measures. The analysis covered five countries: Lithuania (960 farms), Moldavia (532 farms), Poland (696 farms), Romania (872 farms) and Serbia (524 farms). All of these countries are characterised by a high fragmentation of agricultural holdings. The analysis allowed us to formulate the following conclusions: eco-efficiency and human capital efficiency indices increased with area for small- and medium-sized family farms. An increase in the eco-efficiency index with an increase in farm area suggests that the smaller the farm area, the more extensive the agricultural production that was carried out. In addition, an increase in human capital efficiency with an increase in farm area indicates that there was inefficiency in the utilisation of human capital resources on the agricultural farms studied.
Highlights
Small farms are most often identified in terms of technological backwardness, low efficiency and poverty [1,2]
This study aimed to answer the following research questions: What is the level of eco-efficiency in small- and mediumsized family farms in the selected European countries? What is the level of human capital efficiency in the investigated farms? What is the relationship between eco-efficiency and human capital efficiency?
The observations made in this publication indicate an increase in the value of the economic measure with an increase in the area of the farm (Table 2). This relation was observed in all analysed countries; the average area of farms in each class varied, we observed a constant tendency of an increased economic measure value with increased farm area. This can partly be explained by the use of economies of scale for production, small farms usually have a greater opportunity to carry out production requiring higher labour input
Summary
Small farms are most often identified in terms of technological backwardness, low efficiency and poverty [1,2]. It is important to remember that small farms provide a place to live and work for nearly half of the world’s population [4]. Small- and medium-sized family farms are most often considered places for the production of healthy food and reservoirs of biodiversity. The need to protect the environment forces everyone to take rational actions aimed at sustainable development; one measure for such development may be eco-efficiency. It should be understood as a measure of sustainability that directly links environmental impact to economic performance [5]. Ecoefficiency can be applied as a control tool at the production management level to mitigate environmental impact [6]
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