The determinants of adopting organic farming practices: a case study in the Czech Republic

The presented article focuses on an analysis of the phenomena appearing in the implementation of the transition from classic conventional technology in the production of agricultural food products to an ecological manner of farming. The main objective is an empirical analysis of the determinants of the implementation of ecological production technology, whereby not only is their definition focused on, but also the quantification of the level of their effect. The primary methodological tool for achieving the objective is a binary choice model, which was estimated in three variants - probit model, logit model and linear probability model. These estimations are conducted on the basis of the unbalanced panel data from 531 agricultural businesses - legal entities obtained over the time period 2004-2008. Results of the analyses indicate that the transition to and implementation of the organic production technology is negatively affected primarily by the higher age of the farmers and the high productivity of labour. On the other hand, the subsidies for the support of organic agriculture, as well as a high return on cost can be considered as the factors which positively influence the implementation of the organic technology. Given this fact, it is possible, through agricultural policy, to effectively influence the number of organically managing farmers, as well as the acreage of the organically managed land. And from the achieved outputs, the type of farm is subsequently characterised where a transition to organic farming may most likely be expected.