Browsing by Author "Hoop, Daniel"

The paper investigates the impact of subsidies and of para-agriculture on the technical efficiency of organic farms in Switzerland, Austria and Southern Germany. The data-set consists of bookkeeping data with 1,704 observations in the years 2003 to 2005. Technical efficiency is modelled using a stochastic distance-frontier model combined with a Metafrontier-model. The results show almost no efficiency differences among the farms in the three countries. Para-agriculture shows a strong impact on farm's efficiency and output in Austria and Switzerland, whereas in Germany the effect is rather small. The study confirms that agricultural subsidies have a direct impact on farm's efficiency.

The paper investigates the impact of subsidies and of para-agriculture on the technical efficiency of organic farms in Switzerland, Austria and Southern Germany. The data-set consists of bookkeeping data with 1,704 observations in the years 2003 to 2005. Technical efficiency is modelled using a stochastic distance-frontier model combined with a Metafrontier-model. The results show almost no efficiency differences among the farms in the three countries. Para-agriculture shows a strong impact on farm's efficiency and output in Austria and Switzerland, whereas in Germany the effect is rather small. The study confirms that agricultural subsidies have a direct impact on farm's efficiency.

Der Konferenzbeitrag untersucht die Wirkung der Paralandwirtschaft auf die technische Effizienz von Ökobetrieben in der Schweiz, Österreich und Süddeutschland. Technische Effizienz wird modelliert mit Hilfe einer Distanzfrontier in Kombination mit einem Metafrontier-Modell. Paarlandwirtschaft zeigt negative Auswirkungen auf die technische Effizienz in der Schweiz und Deutschland. Es zeigt sich außerdem, dass die Zahlungen der ersten und zweiten Säule der Gemeinsamen Agrarpolitik der EU ebenfalls eine negative Auswirkung auf technische Effizienz haben.

The diversification of farms can be a result of multifunctional farming, however, in some cases at the cost of lower farm efficiency. In our paper we investigate the influence of para-agricultural diversification on productivity and the technical efficiency of organic farms in Austria, Switzerland, and Southern Germany. We show the benefits and drawbacks of diversification for organic farms, which go beyond the core agricultural production (para-agriculture). We do this by estimating a Stochastic Frontier (SF) combined with a metafrontier model. The data-set consists of bookkeeping data with 1704 observations in the years 2003 to 2005. Para-agricultural diversification activities have a significant effect on both productivity and technical efficiency of organic farms: The farm output in Austria and Switzerland is positively influenced by diversification, whereas we observe a rather small effect in Southern Germany. On the other hand, diversification can reduce farms’ technical efficiency, as it is the case in Switzerland and Germany. Furthermore, our study confirms previous results that agricultural subsidies significantly influence the technical efficiency of organic farms. We also show expected changes of input use driven by increased farm diversification. View Full-Text