Farmers’ futures: an application of the Delphi method in the context of Finnish agriculture

Sorvali, Jaana; Varho, Vilja; Rikkonen, Pasi; Kaseva, Janne; Peltonen-Sainio, Pirjo

doi:10.1186/s40309-023-00224-y

European Journal of Futures Research

Table 2 Future variables, established factors, and loadings as an outcome of the Varimax-rotated exploratory factor analysis

From: Farmers’ futures: an application of the Delphi method in the context of Finnish agriculture

Future variable	Factors and loadings
	Ecological &	Tightening policy and impoverishing production	Technology solves	Corporate agribusiness	Business-as-usual
	specialized small-scale production	Tightening policy and impoverishing production	Technology solves	Corporate agribusiness	Business-as-usual
Domestic production considered highly sanitary will become a driver of exports	0.68
The valuation of domestic food will increase	0.68
Local food will become popular	0.68
Finnish food will be exported	0.54		0.32
Small farms will maintain their vitality through specialization	0.47
Organic farming will expand substantially	0.43
Special crops will be cultivated more than currently	0.43
Migration to the countryside will increase	0.33	-0.33
Costs of agricultural production will increase		0.64
Laws on agriculture will be stricter		0.52
The number of farms will decrease		0.51	0.31
Political decisions will have a significant impact on agricultural production		0.47
Agricultural subsidies will decrease		0.45
Finland’s self-sufficiency in agricultural products will decrease		0.43
Unproductive farming depending only on subsidies will increase		0.31
Farmers’ workload will become lighter		-0.4
Innovations will be introduced in agriculture			0.6
Automation will increase in agriculture			0.58
Yields will increase from the current level			0.52
Farm sizes will continue to grow			0.51
Technological development will solve problems in agriculture			0.47
Renewable energy will increasingly be used in agriculture	0.31		0.45
Nutrient recycling will increase in agriculture	0.38		0.43
Large corporations will buy and cultivate farmland				0.51
Farmland ownership will separate from labor				0.43
Corporations and cooperatives will replace traditional family-run farms				0.43
Agricultural subsidies will be discontinued				0.41
Finnish production will decrease substantially		0.35		0.38
Agriculture will remain as it is					0.37
Cultivated areas for barley and oats will remain as they are					0.36
Climate change will have a significant effect on agriculture in Finland
Farm operations will be highly optimized
Agricultural land will be more easily available
Part-time farming will increase
Eigenvalue	2.99	2.6	2.52	1.44	0.63
Variance explained	0.09	0.08	0.07	0.04	0.02
Squared multiple correlation	0.79	0.75	0.73	0.62	0.43
Cronbach’s alpha	0.78	0.71	0.76	0.54	0.31

The eigenvalues of the factors, Cronbach’s α values, and the squared multiple correlation (SMC) values are presented in the bottom rows, above which are the four scattered statements without loadings for any factors

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