Cow's milk price volatility management and farm income securing. Cases from French dairy farms.

Since the European dairy market has undergone gradual liberalization measures, milk farms are more exposed to extreme milk price volatility. Our research project aims to identify the factors that enable them to be more robust regarding milk price volatility. Thus, it consists in highlighting the features of farms that show more stable income during (robust) past periods of milk price volatility. We use linear multiple regressions in order to estimate the effects of potential factors with panel data (2003-2017). Therefore, our study contributes to the literature about farm income stabilization, especially for milk farm, by testing some potential sources of heterogeneity (ex: diversification, tactical adjustments, structural evolution) in the presence of price volatility.