What Drives Farmers’ Decisions to Invest? The Role of Research Engagement, Information Collection and Type of Farm

The present paper develops a framework for modeling and explaining the decisions of farmers for realizing investments aimed at improving the operation of their holdings. The empirical analysis is conducted in Greece on 777 farmers of arable and orchard crops. The results prioritize the significance of farmers’ research engagement and information collection and show that there is a systematic difference between the realized investments between arable crops and orchard farmers, as the latter seem to invest more in their holdings. Finally, the paper ends up with a clustering exercise, in order to distinguish three groups of farmers which could be used as a means for shaping more tailored policy initiatives.