Work

Economic, social and environmental sustainability of farms in Poland. Does a short food supply chain matter?

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: The aim of the article is to indicate how sustainable farms participating in short food supply chains are compared to farms not participating. A database of 199 farms from Poland was collected in 2023, of which 94 participated in ‘short’ selling, and the remaining 105 did not. The study was conducted in three steps. Firstly, synthetic measures of economic, social and environmental sustainability were constructed using the CRITIC-TOPSIS method. Secondly, the significance of differences between the mean values of the sustainability components for SFSC farms and non-SFSC farms was assessed. Thirdly, on the basis of logistic regression, the influence of selected variables on the probability of farms participating in short supply chains was determined. The study shows that farms participating in SFCS are clearly more sustainable in the social dimension compared to non-SFCS farms. In the case of the economic dimension, the differences were less marked but statistically significant, while no clear differences were noted for environmental sustainability.

Source: Economics and Environment

DOI: 10.34659/eis.2026.97.2.1142

Authors: Marta Guth, Sebastian Stępień, Maciej Gawrysiak, Aleksander Grzelak, Jan Polcyn, Aleksandra Tošović-Stevanović

Institutions: Poznań University of Economics and Business, Stanisław Staszic University of Applied Sciences in Piła, University of Belgrade

Language: English

Topic: Sustainable Agricultural Systems Analysis

Subfield: Environmental Chemistry

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Responsible consumption and production, Zero hunger

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: Grantová Agentura České Republiky, Narodowym Centrum Nauki