Characterising objective pro®les of Costa Rican dairy farmers

Farmers' objectives and the factors a€ecting them were studied in 91 dairy farms in Costa Rica. Objective's hierarchies were studied using Rokeach's technique with a mixture of personal, economic and familiar goals. A canonical correlation analysis was performed to ®nd out simple and canonical correlations between farmers'/farms' characteristics and objective priorities. Factor analysis combined with a cluster analysis was used to reduce the number of variables involved and to de®ne groups of farmers with similar economic, personal and familiar and overall objective pro®les. A multiple correspondence analysis was used to graphically represent the relationships between farmers'/farms' characteristics and objective pro®les. Results showed that economic goals were the most important for the majority of farmers. Low to medium signi®cant simple correlations and one medium to high canonical correlation were found, showing that age, educational level, the distance of the farm to population centres, the level of dedication and pasture area were the characteristics that had the largest impact on the arrangement of objectives. The overall cluster analysis con®rmed that economic oriented farmers were more frequent in the population. However, farmers with personal and familiar pro®les were also found. It was concluded that the farmers'/farms' characteristics, although signi®cant, explained a small proportion of the variation in the objective hierarchies. Nevertheless, well-de®ned groups of farmers could be found. These 0308-521X/01/$ see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII : S0308 -521X(00)00054 -8 Agricultural Systems 67 (2001) 153±179 www.elsevier.com/locate/agsy * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-131-535384; fax: +44-131-6672601. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Herrero). groups showed that objective pro®les were very heterogeneous, with around 50% of farmers attached to economic objectives. # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.