Small farms’ resilience strategies to face economic, social, and environmental disturbances in selected regions in Poland and Latvia

Abstract

The official statistics show that the number of small farms (SFs) in Europe is decreasing. Their ability to maintain their activities in the light of internal and external disturbances relies on diverse resilience strategies. Building on resilience literature, this paper addresses the following research questions: what economic, social, and environmental disturbances SFs perceive as the most pressing ones; what resilience strategies SFs implement in the face of these disturbances. We identify and analyse the disturbances faced, and resilience strategies employed, by SFs based on qualitative data from interviews with farmers in selected regions of Poland and Latvia. The analysis contributes to a better understanding of the factors that hamper the farming practices of SFs, and the internal and external resources deployed by SFs in trying to absorb, and recover from, the diverse shocks and stresses.