Research on short food supply chains (SFSCs) has experienced a remarkable growth during recent years, offering ample evidence that the creation of such alternative food distribution networks can bring multiple benefits to both farmers and consumers. Nevertheless, farmers' engagement in SFSCs is still limited in many countries. Two studies designed to illustrate the role of competencies in the development of SFSCs are reported in this paper. The first one assessed the influence of farmers' self-perceived competencies on their willingness to participate in SFSCs. The second examined whether the engagement in SFSCs affects the levels of participants' competency needs. Study 1 revealed that willingness to participate in SFSCs is affected by the levels of farmers' competencies on issues pertaining to management, entrepreneurship, marketing, networking and cooperation. Although other factors such as farmers' citizenship behavior, their environmental concern and the perception that engagement in SFSCs can increase farm income are also associated with this willingness, self-perceived competencies represent the most important set of predictors. Study 2 uncovered that participation in SFSCs increases farmers' needs in all the above-mentioned categories of competencies. Taken together, these results indicate that farmers' competencies significantly affect their involvement in SFSCs, and that engagement in SFSCs augments competency needs, thus highlighting the importance of creating spaces that help farmers develop and exploit new capabilities.
