Agriculture, Vol. 32 No. 1, 2026.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.18047/poljo.32.1.13
Land Structure as a Determinant of Legal Entity Dairy Farm Typologies: Evidence from Croatia
Maja Petrač
orcid.org/0000-0001-7146-8194
; Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Agrobiotechnical Sciences Osijek, Vladimira Preloga 1, 31000 Osijek, Croatia
*
Krunoslav Zmaić
; Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Agrobiotechnical Sciences Osijek, Vladimira Preloga 1, 31000 Osijek, Croatia
David Kranjac
orcid.org/0000-0002-9630-859X
; Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Agrobiotechnical Sciences Osijek, Vladimira Preloga 1, 31000 Osijek, Croatia
Lucija Pečurlić
; Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Agrobiotechnical Sciences Osijek, Vladimira Preloga 1, 31000 Osijek, Croatia
Jaka Žgajnar
orcid.org/0000-0003-2673-2149
; University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, Jamnikarjeva 101, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The paper presents the results of a cluster analysis conducted on all 62 legal dairy farms in Croatia. The aim is to group legal entity dairy farms into smaller homogeneous groups with similar characteristics according to a given variable. Such farm groups will serve to define typical farms that will be the basis for an in-depth assessment of the current state and further development of the Croatian dairy sector. The four key variables used in the cluster analysis relate to the structure of the total utilized agricultural area (UAA). The cluster analysis identified five different groups of legal dairy farms, and 90% of legal dairy farms belong to a cluster of medium-sized farms with strong development potential. It was shown that on legal dairy farms, agricultural land is mainly arable, with corn as the main crop. They show a highly specialized structure focused almost exclusively on field crops, unlike family dairy farms that show greater diversification (meadows, grasslands, karst pastures). Based on these findings, the development of farm models using mathematical programming is planned. The analysis relies on real sector data provided by the Croatian Agriculture and Food Agency and was conducted using hierarchical and non-hierarchical clustering methods in IBM SPSS Statistics. The results provide a solid basis for designing farm-level models and contribute to future research and evidence-based policymaking in the Croatian dairy sector.
Keywords
land structure; legal dairy farms; cluster analysis; farm model
Hrčak ID:
348745
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2026.
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