Social and economic position of smallholders farmers in Serbia

Abstract

The paper focuses on the socio-economic factors of small farms in Serbia. Small farms occupy most of the farmland and, therefore, are very important to economic and agricultural development, although they achieve lower income and are not as productive as large farms. The authors conducted research and addressed the key related to the functioning of small farms in the context of the population working in agriculture. The primary goal of this article was to identify the share of the population working in agriculture and their income structure, level of education, age, gender, working hours etc. Using a database of 550 farms, the socio-economic factors were calculated, and then the impact of the selected factors on economic and sustainable development. Identifying those socio-economic effects may provide recommendations for the policy of supporting small-scale family farms in the analyzed country.