Preventing young farmers from leaving the farm: Investigating the effectiveness of the young farmer payment using a behavioural approach

Abstract

The number of young farmers has decreased over recent decades in several developed countries such as the \nUnited States and European countries. A recent strategy adopted by the European Union to address the resulting \nage imbalance is the Young Farmer Payment which provides an additional payment on top of the average basic \npayment introduced in the last Common Agricultural Policy reform. The objective of this study is to determine, \nby means of a behavioural approach, how this payment in \nfl \nuenced the incentives of young farmers to stay in the \nfarm. Using the endogenous succession cycle model and the structural modelling technique, we found that the \npayment a \nff \nected young farmers \n’ \nwillingness to stay through its in \nfl \nuence on non-economic motivational goals. \nHowever, we also found that there are other factors that can be even more in \nfl \nuential, such as pessimism about \nfarming, community and family integration, participation in decision making, and the opinion of neighbours, \namong others. Based on the results, we argue that similar policies could be adopted in other countries, although \npolicies would be more e \nff \nective in addressing age imbalances if they are accompanied with complementary \nstrategies aimed to deal with the identi \nfi \ned social and psychological considerations.