Studies on the impact assessment of subsidy schemes on farm performance indicators show contradictory results. Some studies indicate improvements in farm efficiency, while others highlight distortions and negative externalities. This paper analyses the impact of budgetary support provided to dairy farms in Albania based on a structured farm survey. The impact is assessed using causal forest, an adaptation of Breiman’s random forest algorithm for treatment effect estimation. Results suggest that subsidies positively impact the number of milking cows, output (quantity of milk sold), and revenues but have no impact on employment, yields, investment, or future investment plans. The study suggests that public support to dairy farmers should be conditioned on technology improvement measures and CAP-like cross-compliance obligations.

Access to finance poses a significant challenge for smallholder farmers, influencing the prospects for improving their livelihoods. Financial literacy stands out as a pivotal factor in overcoming this hurdle, playing a crucial role in attaining access to finance, maintaining creditworthiness and fostering economic stability. The objective of this study is to enable an understanding of the financial literacy level of smallholder farmers and to explore empirically the factors that can be associated with their financial literacy. The study is based on a field survey using structured questionnaires targeting 506 smallholder farmers located in different parts of Albania. Descriptive analysis and logit regression analyses are carried out in order to study the relationship between farmers’ capacity to calculate credit obligations and their farm assets, access to knowledge, access to financial services and behaviours related to financial record keeping. The ability to correctly calculate the value of the credit costs has been found to be positively associated with access to previous training, experience with application for accessing subsidies, access to a bank account, and their habit of financial keeping records.

Farm to school (F2S) programmes ensure school pupils receive an appropriate diet, fight malnutrition, and motivate children to attend school. The participation of local smallholders in F2S schemes contributes to these objectives, but also provides a market opportunity for local small farms. This is particularly important in the case of developing or emerging economies that are characterised by malnutrition among children and where smallholdings often struggle with limited market access, as is the case with Albania. The aim of this paper is to explore the main factors affecting farmers’ willingness to participate in a F2S scheme using data from a structured farm survey. Regression analysis results show that economically based motivation (farm-related factors such as size and post-harvest losses) intertwined with social capital factors and attitudinal indicators (experience and attitudes towards cooperation, reliance on local governmental support, information, and product safety perception level) affect farmers’ willingness to participate in F2S schemes. For farmers to participate viably in such schemes, it is necessary to provide knowledge, awareness, and support for ensuring compliance with food safety and quality standards and for improving cooperation.

mountainous areas and the valorisation opportunities arising from the certification of origin. The study explores consumer preferences toward the main attributes of goat-kid meat such as origin, weight and quality-certification. A Conjoint Choice Experiment was utilised to design the survey and a Latent Class Analysis Model employed to analyse the results of a survey carried out with 250 residents living in urban areas of Tirana. Origin was found to be the most important factor for all three identified consumer classes. This result can be used to producers’ advantage if labelling and other marketing tools are available to inform consumers of the products’ origin. Implementation and enforcement of origin identification should be a priority for the government and other stakeholders.

In this study, we estimate the impact of land fragmentation and crop rotation on farm productivity in rural Albania. We employ a stochastic production frontier estimation approach to survey data collected among farm households in Albania in 2013. Our estimates suggest that land fragmentation improves farm efficiency, probably because it permits a better use of household labour during the production seasons. Our estimates also suggest that crop rotation increases farm efficiency. However, the impact of land fragmentation on on farm efficiency is far more pronounced.

Building on transaction cost economics theoretical framework, we examined the determinants of long-term business relationships between farmers and buyers in the Albanian dairy chain in a context characterised by weak institutions and lack of formal contract. Logistic regression analysis was employed to test the model on primary data collected from a sample of 315 Albanian farmers engaged in the production of sheep and goat milk. The study results support our hypotheses that trust, uncertainty and investment in specific assets are key determinants of long-term relationships. Implications at managerial and policy-making levels are discussed. At a managerial level, dairy owners and managers need to build trust with farmers and mitigate uncertainties as a precondition for long-term relationships. At the policy level, the government subsidy schemes need to be further refined in order to motivate farmers to increase flock size and strengthen vertical relationships in the dairy value chain, the latter being a precondition also to achieve traceability and improve standards.