Is part-time farming less subsidised? The example of direct payments in France and Switzerland

Abstract

Farms in Western countries are strongly subsidised while part-time farms are in general ignored in agricultural support regulations. But is public support truly designed in such a way that it favours full-time farms? The common view is that part-time farms, not involved solely in farming, receive fewer subsidies than full-time farms. In this paper we investigate whether the part-time character is disadvantageous to farms when it comes to receiving direct payments. Using an econometric regression on farmlevel data, we assess the influence of off-farm activities on the level of payments received in France and in Switzerland in 2003. Our results show that the influence is non linear: the effect is negative for farms with a low part-time character but positive for the others. A strong part-time character can therefore favour the receipt of direct payments.