Mapping farm business model configurations with archetypal analysis: evidence from Flemish dairy farming

Agricultural policy and advisory instruments increasingly operate in heterogeneous farm populations, yet conventional farm typologies often impose mutually exclusive categories that obscure mixed configurations and boundary cases. This paper develops and demonstrates an empirical approach to constructing a farm business-model typology that maps farm-level indicators onto the business model dimensions and estimates archetypal configurations, allowing mixed membership to be assessed empirically rather than imposed by hard clustering. Using farm-level data from the 2020 Belgian agricultural census ( n = 3,810 Flemish dairy farms), we apply archetypal analysis to identify empirically grounded business-model archetypes and quantify mixed membership. We operationalise value creation, delivery, and capture through indicators of fodder-based composition, diversification, labour and land organisation, and economic size. A four-archetype solution emerges: Grassland Stewards (GS), Integrated Feed Landholders (IFL), Entrepreneurial Diversifiers (ED), and Scale Maximisers (SM). Membership patterns indicate substantial overlap between archetypal poles, with mixed membership prevalent across the population. Sectoral concentration patterns further show that some configurations account for a large share of farms and labour, whereas others account for a disproportionately large share of cows and standard output despite representing a smaller share of farms. The resulting configuration map can inform benchmarking and differentiated instrument design by clarifying where diversity is concentrated, how boundary configurations are structured, and which operating logics face distinct organisational and market conditions.