Browsing by Author "Pämppi, Roni"

The improvement of competitiveness in the agricultural sector of Finland requires faster development in productivity than that of competing countries. That can be achieved by questioning old work methods and developing new ones. Entrepreneurial farm management requires business skills and monitoring markets. Increase in farm size is a result of inefficient farms exiting the market and resources concentrating to a smaller group of continuing farms. Then they may get scale benefits and productivity increases. The main issue in this study was to investigate whether the age of the successor has a connection with farm growth after succession. Other explanatory factors of farm growth after succession were also investigated. The study was implemented as a regression analysis using inquiry data acquired by e-mail. The farms in the survey data grew notably faster than farms in the accountancy data of Natural Resources Institute Finland in the years 2012-2015. The investment rate of the farms was also especially high. Both discoveries support the results from earlier studies according to which the speed of development is connected to the rythm of succession. In the meantime most investments are made after the succession. A connection between the successors age and farm growth was found, although weaker than expected. Younger successors’ farms grew faster than older farmers’ farms during the following period. The distribution of farm size in the survey data was divided in terms of the successors age; younger successors’ farms were originally bigger than their older colleagues’ farms. The bigger original size of the farm can be assumed to influence the absolute growth of turnover. The positive connection between the purchase price of the farm and the growth of turnover of the farm supports that assumption. The relative growth of the farm appears to be stronger in older successors’ farms than in younger successors’ farms. The relative growth of the farm was found to be greater in smaller farms than in bigger ones. The relative indebtedness was found to correlate strongly with the relative growth of the farm. Investments made after the succession were a significant explainatory factor to both relative and absolute growth of the farm.