Exploring Farmers' Willingness to Join Short Food Supply Chains

Romanian agriculture is dominated by numerous small and medium-sized producers, who barely manage to market their outputs. Scientists indicate that cooperation by forming short chains may overcome this situation, thus the paper explores the willingness of farmers to join short food supply chains, starting from the premise that most of them want to organize themselves in such networks. The objectives of the research are to identify the challenges faced by small and medium-sized farmers, and the factors that determine them to form short supply chains. To achieve this goal, a survey has been conducted to identify the correlations between farmers’ willingness to join short chains and the factors that may influence this decision: producer’s experience, farm size and profile, and form of organization of the farm. The main findings show that farmers’ willingness to join short supply chains is influenced by the farm profile, more precisely, farmers who grow vegetables and raise animals are willing to form short chains to market their outputs. Derived results can be used in macroeconomic policy decisions, targeting these farmers in particular with incentives for the formation of short supply chains.