Are Portuguese family farmers more sustainable than their non-family counterparts?

Abstract

After United Nations declared 2015 the year of Family Farming, the topic entered public policy tables around the world. Then, the UN announced that the decade between 2019 and 2028 would be the Decade of Family Farming, reinforcing the tendency. Yet, doubts concerning the sustainable character of family farming rose among academics. So, this study assesses if family farmers are more sustainable than non-family farmers in the Portuguese context. Using a Farming Sustainability Composite Index (FSCI) built purposedly for this study as a dependent variable in spatial regression models, we were able to test this relationship. Alas, the results from the models’ estimation proved to be statistically insignificant, meaning that no relation between family farming and farming sustainability could be established. However, the results from a third model established a positive relationship between the number of family farmers and the amount of green subsidies received in a given municipality. Still, for the Portuguese context, whether a link between family farming and sustainability exists remains to be proven. Further research is needed to address this issue.