PR - More Than Income Benefits? The Impact Of Farm Investments On Farmers’ Perceived Quality Of Life. Evidence From Austria

The evaluation of farm-investment programmes is a challenging task, since investments and the effects caused by investments are very heterogeneous. Investments do not only have purely economic effects such as income augmentation and workload reduction, but they also influence farmers’ quality of life. In our study we analyse 23 typical agricultural investment projects in Austria and we investigate the impact of those investments projects on farmers’ perceived quality of life. The findings show that the farmers pursue multiple objectives with their investments. The investment projects contribute positively to farmers’ satisfaction with quality of life; this applies particularly for labour-intensive dairy farms and for life domains such as work, income and leisure time. We conclude that the application of QOL-indices significantly broadens our understanding of investment processes and we recommend integrating such an indicator into future investment project evaluation.

Keywords: farm investment, investment behaviour, quality of life, mountain farming