Wirtschaftszahlen: This database contains general data on the development of agricultural producer and input prices, the consumer price index and foreign trade in agricultural and food goods on a monthly basis for the previous 24 months. In addition, this database comprises important volume and price developments on national and international markets for selected product groups of agricultural products such as grain, livestock, meat, milk and dairy products as well as vegetables, fruit and sugar. This file is only available in German.
We conduct a robustness reproduction of Ammann et al. (2023), published in Food Quality and Preference, who examine how consumers evaluate the importance of animal welfare as an agricultural policy goal relative to potentially competing objectives. Using the publicly available data, we first provide a reproduction of the original results and then perform a robustness reproduction that relaxes the linearity assumption through a Machine Learning (ML) work-flow. The original association patterns are reproducible, while the ML extension uncovers modest nonlinearities with limited gains in explanatory power. Overall, this study illustrates a simple and transparent workflow that complements standard OLS-based replication with data-driven specifications, thereby supporting transparency and reproducibility in applied agricultural economics.
Applied price transmission analysis is often carried out with temporally aggregated data. However, the effects of temporal aggregation on estimation and interpretation are largely ignored in the price transmission literature. Following Marcelino (1999) we show how temporal aggregation affects the parameters of the vector error correction models (VECMs) that are commonly used in price transmission analysis. Temporal aggregation does not affect the parameters of the long-run equilibrium relationships between prices, but it does affect the adjustment and autoregressive parameters that describe the short-run dynamics of price adjustment. Temporal aggregation also introduces moving average components into the error terms of VECMs. We present a Monte Carlo experiment and an application to wheat prices in the EU and the US to illustrate how failure to account for these moving average effects further distorts estimates of the dynamics of price transmission. These results have important implications. First, estimation with different temporal aggregates of the same price data will lead to differing and sometimes contradictory conclusions regarding the speed of price transmission, impulse-response patterns and price discovery. Second, it is not possible to derive conclusions regarding the dynamics of price adjustment at a higher frequency from estimates generated with lower-frequency data. In general, reliable insights into the dynamics of price transmission can only be generated if the frequency of the data employed in estimation coincides with the time decision intervals of the agents whose transactions determine prices.
The family farm is a unique institution where the farm household balances family members’ needs with farm business demands. Building on the farm household model, this study identifies and characterizes distinct farmer types based on their perceptions of endogenous and exogenous factors. Social capital is considered a crucial resource in this process, helping farmers manage challenges and secure the farm's future. Using survey data (n = 482) from Styrian farmers, we identified three distinct farmer types: ‘financially strong and satisfied with vocation’, ‘struggling and overworked’ and ‘farming for family heritage and tradition’. Our analysis reveals that the ‘struggling and overworked’ type, which is characterized by higher levels of debt and lower social capital, reports significantly higher levels of stress. This type is also more likely to suffer work-related accidents and less likely to engage in stress-mitigating behaviors such as taking vacations or exercising. In contrast, the ‘financially strong and satisfied with vocation’ type is associated with higher social capital, lower levels of stress and a greater propensity for stress-mitigating behaviors. This research contributes to a better understanding of the factors influencing farmers’ feeling of stress and highlights the crucial role of social capital as a stress-mitigating factor.
This paper develops and implements an analytical framework combining spatial space techniques with panel stochastic frontier models to assess and benchmark time-varying market efficiency, with China’s pork market serving as the empirical application. We analyze spatial and temporal dynamics in adjustment speeds and compare inefficiency under a range of translog frontier specifications and market characteristics. The estimated market efficiency frontiers decline with greater geographic distances but improve with greater inter-market trade volume. Our analysis indicates that the Chinese pork market experiences significant inefficiencies (approximately 50%) in the speed of adjustment. The higher inefficiency is associated with rising diesel fuel prices. Roughly 35% of this inefficiency stems from short-term or transient shocks, and about 25% results from persistent, structural market characteristics. Overall, the study demonstrates that overlooking persistent inefficiency leads to an overestimation of the market’s ability to restore or maintain efficient spatial price transmission over time.
The introduction of a harmonised front-of-pack nutrition label remains a timely and contentious issue within EU policy debates. However, the effects of colour-coded candidates such as the Nutri-Score in combination with other prominent EU food labels such as Geographical Indications (GIs) remain underexplored – particularly, in northern European contexts and in a scenario of mandatory Nutri-Scores. To address this gap, we conduct a discrete choice experiment with over 800 German and Dutch respondents to quantify the willingness to pay for these labels. We find that consumers are willing to pay a premium of 72 cents for GI-labelled Parma ham and 48 cents for a Nutri-Score D rather than E. Consumers also prefer the combination of GI hams with a comparatively better Nutri-Score D but the interaction between the two labels is not significant, indicating no strong interplay between them in our experiment.
When selecting journals as publication outlets, researchers face trade-offs between journals’ quality, reputation, audience and publication speed. Beyond citation-based metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) or the Journal Citation Indicator (JCI), survey-based journal rankings can serve as an important tool to guide authors’ decisions about where to submit manuscripts for publication. This article presents the results from a 2023 survey of 304 agricultural economists from Austria, Germany and Switzerland, who evaluated 160 journals by scientific quality, review quality and reputation. The survey is an update of the 2009 GEWISOLA/ÖGA journal ranking (Dabbert et al., 2009; Herrmann et al., 2011). We compute again a quality index (QI), based on researchers’ perceptions of scientific and review quality, but apply it to the current situation of a strongly growing and proliferated journal market. As agricultural economists are increasingly involved in multi- and interdisciplinary research, our use of a publication-citation indicator leads to a much broader set of journals. Results indicate a higher average QI across journals than in the 2009 journal ranking, a similar group of leading journals, and reputation as a key driver of journal choice. We find and discuss discrepancies between the QI and JIF and inconsistencies between publication patterns and perceived quality. For the 66 journals appearing in both rankings, the average QI increased substantially while the QIs are highly correlated between the two surveys. In a robustness check, we use mean-centered scores to compute an adjusted QI, which does not substantially alter the ordering of journals.
Among firms, policymakers, and researchers in trade policy instruments, the resur-gence of protectionism has sparked renewed interest, particularly in non-tariff measures (NTMs) in agri-food industries such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPSs) and tech-nical barriers to trade (TBTs). Existing research suggests that the effect of NTMs on export competitiveness is unclear and calls for further investigation. This study aims to contribute to filling this gap by examining, with specific respect to the wine industry, the impact of importers’ NTMs on the export competitiveness of their trading partners. The results of our research in-dicate that the subcategories of SPSs and TBTs have a heterogeneous effect on export par-ticipation and export market share and treating them as if they were similar may lead to mis-leading or even erroneous conclusions. Nonetheless, the majority of SPSs and TBTs do pro-mote export participation, though the effect of many of these measures on market share is limited.
This article examines the evolution of Italian farms over the past decade and assesses whether their structural and economic transformations align with the prevailing patterns of agricultural development across different rural areas, as identified by the Italian institutions responsible for implementing rural policies. We conducted a comparative analysis based on repeated cross-sectional data covering the 2014-2020 programming period to evaluate changes in the structure of farms located in territories with different degrees of rurality. Using national microdata from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN), we compared a set of farm characteristics observed in 2014 and 2023, which serve as two observational time points capturing strategic investment choices and behavioural adjustments across areas. The results indicate significant and articulated territorial differences in farm strategies and structural characteristics across the Italian rural continuum. Such complexity calls for a particular effort in enhancing a place-based approach to policy implementation, with targeted and selective measures tailored to the specific needs and potentials of rural areas.
Wirtschaftszahlen: This database contains general data on the development of agricultural producer and input prices, the consumer price index and foreign trade in agricultural and food goods on a monthly basis for the previous 24 months. In addition, this database comprises important volume and price developments on national and international markets for selected product groups of agricultural products such as grain, livestock, meat, milk and dairy products as well as vegetables, fruit and sugar. This file is only available in German.
Widespread adoption of sustainable practices is crucial for a transformation of agriculture towards sustainability. Effective policy interventions to increase their adoption require an understanding of the behavioural drivers of adoption. Based on interviews with twelve experts on German agriculture, this study assesses the importance of a comprehensive set of behavioural factors for the adoption of 18 agri-environmental practices. The rated level of importance of the behavioural factors varies significantly across the practices. While enhancing farmers’ capability in terms of knowledge is confirmed to be a key factor for adoption of most practices, opportunity-related factors such as financial resources, and motivation-related factors such as future-orientation or habits are more specific to certain sub-groups of practices. Cluster analysis reveals three robust groups of practices that share similar behavioural drivers. For instance, a cluster consisting of agroforestry, hedges, and permanent grassland coincided as overall demanding for farmers and difficult to reverse, requiring future-orientation, a favourable legal context without short-term leases, and financial resources. For another cluster – legumes, reduced mowing, reduced tillage, rotational fallow and reduced soil pressure – adoption of the practices may actually save workforce and time for farmers, but - in addition to knowledge needs - depend on proper integration within farmers’ habits and routines. The findings of our study, both at the level of single practices and on cluster-level, can inform the design of targeted policy interventions such as trainings and financial support schemes.
This study replicates the work of Bucheli et al. (2022) to evaluate the reliability and generalizability of their findings on the use of cubic spline methods in weather index insurance design in Eastern Germany. The study consists of two parts: a direct replication and an extended replication using different crops and another regional focus of yield data from Saxony, Germany. The direct replication confirms the original findings, while the extended replication reveals limitations in the model's risk reduction capacities. The gain in model fit, compared with daily temperature data, seems to be modest. It is questionable if an index insurance, which is solely based on temperature, will be considered as an attractive risk management tool, given the substantial basis risk that remains with farmers. The study highlights the importance of considering crop-specific risk profiles, regional climate, and agricultural conditions in insurance design. Moreover, our analysis highlights the relevance of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) data for the performance of replication studies.
Farmland fragmentation in use is related to higher operation cost and reduced productivity, while ownership fragmentation increases transaction costs, both leading to inefficient land use and diminished overall farm performance. This paper aims to quantify the costs of farmland ownership fragmentation using a market-based approach. We hypothesize that buyers and sellers in the farmland market have a lower valuation and demand for spatially separated farmland. To test this hypothesis, we analyze a rich dataset of 24,528 arable land transactions from the eastern German Federal State of Brandenburg from 2000 to 2022 that includes information on whether the traded land was spatially fragmented. Using a doubly robust approach combining matching and regression, we find that package transactions of spatially separated parcels achieve on average 6.7% lower prices than transactions of single parcels with the same size and comparable characteristics. The quantified markdown for packages suggests that market participants associate costs with fragmentation and consider these into their valuation for farmland.
Global supply chains in the agri-food sector are at risk of violations of human rights as well as labour and environmental standards. To address these risks, the German Due Diligence Act (LkSG for „Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz”) was enacted, mandating corporate human rights, labour and environmental due diligence. Despite its significance, there is limited research on the LkSG’s impact on supplier management. This study aims to provide initial insights into how the LkSG affects supplier selection in the agri-food sector. We conducted qualitative analyses of expert interviews with fifteen company representatives from the German agri-food sector. The findings reveal that companies are confident in maintaining their current supply chains without systematically reducing their supplier base. They perceive the LkSG’s legal requirements primarily as a task for supplier development rather than selection. While there was no significant increase in supplier selection criteria related to human rights and the environment, some companies have given these criteria greater importance. Future suppliers to the German agri-food sector will need to provide more detailed information on human rights and environmental risks. Additionally, companies have become more selective in their choice of certification and verification schemes.
This study investigates consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for dairy products from a production system with cow-calf-contact (CCC) based calf management. Our results provide insights into the extent to which consumer-driven change towards such a more animal friendly production practice is viable in Germany. We test the influence of three communication strategies on the WTP for dairy products from a CCC-based calf management production system using a hypothetical contingent valuation survey on a sample of the German internet-using population. We apply a between-subject design with random exposure to one of the communication strategies. Results indicate that consumers are willing to pay an average 20% markup for dairy products from a CCC-based production with a minimum of three months of suckling. Additional information on the benefits of cow-calf interaction for the calf increases the probability of consumers expressing a positive WTP by 8 percentage points and, given a positive WTP, increases stated markups by 16% on average. Information on other consumers’ purchase behaviour or the innovativeness of the production system did not affect stated WTP in our sample. The results offer a potential upper bound for other CCC production systems, e.g., using foster cows. We conclude that information on livestock benefits in consumer communication could raise acceptance and support transitions towards more animal friendly production systems.
Public acceptance is essential for technology innovation in agriculture. Due to the recent advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) could soon revolutionize crop farming landscapes. What is society's view on crops being produced with the help of autonomous machines and how do different groups accept the technologies? A sample of 567 German citizens was segmented into clusters using an unsupervised machine-learning technique. The analysis elaborated on heterogeneity in public attitudes concerning challenges and advances of RAS and investigated political attitudes in relation to RAS attitudes. A majority of the participants are in favor of the use of RAS. While 41% of the participants positioned themselves as positive (Proponents), about 19% even showed a strong positive attitude towards RAS use (Enthusiasts). The ease of farm work and environmental benefits drive RAS acceptance among Proponents and Enthusiasts. Nevertheless, 29% support RAS use overall but raise concerns regarding socio-economic impacts (Skeptical Proponents), and 11% (Skeptics) take a skeptical stance. Skeptical Proponents and Skeptics fear negative consequences for family farms and are doubtful about potential positive environmental contributions. A higher share of right-wing and non-voter participants is detected among the more skeptical clusters, while green (environmental) party voters are among the more positive participants. Potential concerns should be recognized and addressed by the farming sector on the development path to more automated agriculture. Food production is a sensitive topic affecting everyone, which should be considered in communication efforts. The advantages of RAS technologies need to be articulated through targeted scientific communication.
As in agriculture uncertainties have increased due to extreme weather events and yield variations, a critical examination of crop rotation strategies is needed. This study analyses the relationship between risk and crop rotation planning, addressing the challenges posed by an increasing yield variability and related total contribution margin fluctuations. For the systems ‘conventional farming’, ‘organic farming’ and ‘farming without pesticides, but with mineral fertilizer’ time series data of crop yields, prices and variable costs are collected. The data is used for a Monte Carlo simulation that yields average contribution margins for the considered crops and their (co-)variances, which are needed to build a hypothetical model farm. Relying upon Quadratic Risk Programming, the expected total contribution margins are maximized for a set of fixed total contribution margin variances. Efficient frontiers are derived that show respective optimum combinations of the expected value of the total contribution margin and its standard deviation. Organic farming shows high average total contribution margins for optimized crop rotations, but also increased variance compared to other cropping systems. The inclusion of cereals in a crop rotation lowers the risk, whereas the inclusion of potatoes and sugar beet increases the risk within a crop portfolio across all systems. Optimizing and diversifying the crop portfolio for each cropping system is essential. An optimized farming system without pesticides, but with mineral fertilizer exhibits lower risk but also lower total contribution margin compared to other systems. This is due to a different crop portfolio but also to relatively low prices and yields.
This study investigates the spatiotemporal dynamics of maize cultivation for biogas production in Brandenburg, Germany, from 2008 to 2018, employing a spatially explicit multicriteria analysis. By combining plot-level land-use data from the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) with biogas pnt information, we analyze the likelihood of maize cultivation for biogas at the plot level and find that maize for biogas accounts for over 5% of the total arable land in Brandenburg. We identify patterns of high concentration, particularly in the northwest of the region. The analysis also reveals a steady increase in maize cultivation, aligning with regulatory changes in the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). These findings offer valuable insights into the spatial patterns and drivers of biogas maize production, providing a basis for future environmental and economic research. The study highlights the need for plot-level information to evaluate the effects of renewable energy policies on local land use.
The global market for organic foods is expanding, with consumers willing to pay more for their perceived health and sustainability benefits. However, expressing willingness to pay does not guarantee that sellers can charge a price premium for organic products and pass it along the supply chain. Empirical evidence on the extent to which sellers can set a price premium for organic products is fragmented, especially for e-commerce. This paper uses big data on online prices to provide first insights into the relationship between the product price and the organic attribute across the entire food and beverages variety of the largest full assort-ment of e-grocers in Germany, the world’s second-largest organic market. Our findings show that, on average, organic products are about 5% more expensive than conventional products in the same product category, although the individual estimates vary widely, calling for more data collection efforts and in-depth research for individual products categories.
