Profiles of dairy cow farmers' marketing strategies in the county of Cornwall in the UK

This study aims to profile the marketing strategies that dairy cow farmers follow in the County of Cornwall in the United Kingdom based on their distribution channel selection, farm and personal characteristics. The data were collected through a postal survey to 306 dairy cow farmers in Cornwall. Three marketing strategies were identified: (a) the opportunist strategy, (b) the return focus strategy and (c) the market orientation strategy. The main observed difference between the strategies is that the vast majority of the farmers who adopt the opportunist or the market orientation strategy allocate the greatest part of their farm land to their dairy cow enterprise and do not lease any milk quota from other farmers, whilst the majority of the farmers who follow the opportunist or the return focus strategy do not lease any milk quota to other farmers. Moreover, in market-oriented farms, average financial performance (compared to the performance of other dairy farmers operating in their region) was observed, while the financial performance of the return-focused farmers was not below average.