کشاورزی ارگانیک در اسکاندیناوی - بهره وری و خروج بازار

This paper attempts to quantitatively measure the change in the productivity of Danish organic farming in recent years. Based on a translog production frontier framework the technical and scale efficiency at farm level is analysed by following a time trends as well as a general index model specification. Further this study tries to analyse the significance of subsidies for promoting long term growth in organic production by estimating a bootstrapped bivariate probit model with respect to factors influencing the probability of organic market exit. The results revealed significant differences in the organic farms' technical efficiencies, no significant total factor productivity growth and even a slightly negative rate of technical change in the period investigated. Evidence has been found for a positive relationship between subsidy payments and an increase in farm efficiency, technology improvements and a decreasing probability of organic market exit which was also confirmed for off farm income.

The promotion of organic farming has become an essential element of supranational and national food policy throughout Europe as well as other continents to promote safe and environmentally friendly food production. However, the finding that organic farming technology has developed with relatively little input from scientifically oriented research still holds (see Oude Lansink et al., 2002). Empirical evidence on the dynamic development of organic farming with respect to the underlying production structure is still rare and mostly based on partial measures of economic performance (see e.g. Jacobsen et al., 2005). So far, the issue of technical change and productivity development over time seems to be poorly investigated mainly because of a lack of adequate data at the farm level (most recently Sipilæinen and Oude Lansink, 2005). Denmark is currently one of the top-ten countries in Europe with regard to the share of organically cultivated area. However, in the last three to five years Denmark experienced a kind of stagnation with respect to the further development of the organic farming sector described as a ‘natural weakening’ by sectoral policy advisors (see e.g. Norfelt, 2005): While the export of organic products could not been expanded also the domestic consumption stagnated resulting in a total surplus of organic production. After continuing growth the total number of organic farms declined in this period from 3714 in 2002 to 3166 in the year 2004. Experts expect an enduring recession of organic farming in Denmark. This paper attempts to quantitatively measure the change in productivity for Danish organic farming in recent years by using panel data on 56 organic farms mainly engaged in milk production for the period 2002 to 2004. Section 2 gives a brief overview of recent developments in the organic farming sector in Denmark, Section 3 summarises the modelling approaches as well as the main findings of most relevant economic studies on organic farming. Section 4 gives a brief theoretical review of the concepts of total factor productivity and market exit as well as outlines the underlying research hypotheses and the different models applied. Section 5 describes the data set and estimation procedures used followed by the exposition and discussion of the estimation results in Section 6. Section 7 finally concludes.

The preceding analysis attempts to measure the total factor productivity growth of organic milk production in Denmark. By using recent panel data this study tries to add to the empirical literature on organic farming. By considering theoretical consistency of the estimation model as well as applying different models it is tried to add to the more modelling oriented literature on productivity analysis. Furthermore possible factors for explaining the variation in the different productivity components over time were investigated and policy relevant characteristics of farms likely to exit the market were analyzed. Significant differences are found in the organic farms' technical efficiencies and total factor productivities on a high level (Hypothesis 1). The results, however, only partly confirmed Hypothesis 2 assuming no significant total factor productivity growth over the last years and show even a slightly negative rate of technical change for organic milk production in Denmark. However, it seems that these empirical results are not strong enough to support the view of a profound stagnation in organic milk farming. Further evidence for a positive relationship between subsidy payments and increasing farm efficiency as well as technology improvements is found (Hypothesis 3). This holds also with respect to off farm earnings. Moreover Hypothesis 4 has been confirmed, expecting a negative effect of an increase in subsidy payments as well as an increase in off farm income over time on the likelihood of market exit. With respect to the relative superiority of the different modelling approaches evidence was found for a more accurate mapping of total factor productivity growth by the general index model (Hypothesis 5). The farm rankings by the different productivity indices estimated were nevertheless found to be significantly correlated. With respect to future policy measures these findings suggest that if further growth in organic farming should be stimulated, ongoing monetary support is effective to keep farms in the business. In addition policy measures should be also focused on promoting alternative off farm income possibilities. The latter suggestion seems to gain even more importance if one keeps in mind that organic dairy farms in Europe are expected to face reduced prices in the next years as a result of the general EU reform. Needless to say that beside such supply oriented measures also demand oriented measures have to be pursued. Future research should focus on shedding empirical light on the long term developments in the market. However, this requires the availability of a larger panel data set than currently available.