Determinants of sustainability and synergy between economic, social and environmental orders. A comparative analysis for farms participating and not participating in short food supply chains

Abstract

The prevailing view in the literature is that participation in short food supply chains increases farm sustainability. However, there are no clear opinions on the individual dimensions of sustainability and the relationships between them. Therefore, the aim of this article is to analyse the impact of selected variables on shaping economic, social, and environmental order and explore the synergies (trade-offs) between them. The analysis focuses on two groups of farms: those participating in short food supply chains and those not involved, treated as a control group. The study used data from 199 Polish farms and applied structural equation modelling. The results indicate that participation in short supply chains creates a more balanced and coherent sustainability profile. Short selling primarily enhances social sustainability and fosters coherence across sustainability domains, albeit at the expense of lower labour productivity. The conclusions regarding the environmental order are ambiguous, indicating the need for further research.