Determinants of direct-to-consumer sales on French farms

This article aims to identify the influences of a variety of factors on the practice of agricultural direct-to-consumer sales activities. Using data from the 2007 Farm Structure Survey, representative of the all the farms in France, it shows that the propensity to sell directly to consumers is significantly influenced by several factors both internal to the agricultural sector (farms’ economic size and farm type, product quality, agrotourism and contract work activities, and the work team characteristics of family and hired labour, gender, educational level, farm-head age) and external to it (market characteristics, including local markets). It makes an original contribution to the literature on the subject, highlighting that beyond the traits they have in common, farms in direct-to-consumer sales present differentiated characteristics depending on the type of product they produce.