SUMMARY
Decisions made by farmers can have large influences beyond the farm boundary because farmers are the firstlink in the food supply chain. For this reason, understanding their decision-making behaviour may be of interestto all stakeholders of food systems. Since there is considerable evidence that personality traits may affectdecision-making behaviour, this paper investigates personality traits according to the HEXACO model ofpersonality in a sample of 244 German livestock farmers. Our results indicate that livestock farmers differ intheir personality from the general population, with farmers scoring higher on honesty-humility,conscientiousness and being more emotionally stable. Comparisons within the farmer sample show thatorganic livestock farmers score higher on Openness than conventional farmers. However, the results of aconfirmatory factor analysis suggest that the German version of the short item scale used to measure thepersonality traits of the sample should be partially modified. Even though our results should therefore beunderstood rather as first indications and a basis for further research, they could help to better align supportstrategies, e.g. for more animal-friendly production, with the personality traits of farmers.