Determinants of productivity change of crop and dairy farms in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden in 1995-2004

We calculate the productivity change of the dairy and crop farms in three European countries in 1995-2004 using the Divisa index. We decompose the productivity change in the stochastic frontier framework into four components: technical efficiency change, technical change, scale change and allocative change. The average annual productivity growth of the crop farms in 1995-2004 is 1.6%, 2.8% and 3.4% respectively in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. The main source of the productivity growth of the German and Dutch crop farms is the technical change. The main source of the growth in the Swedish crop farms is the technical efficiency change. The average annual productivity growth of the dairy farms in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden in 1995-2004 is 0.8%, 2.2% and 1.9% respectively. The main source of the productivity growth of the German and Swedish dairy farms is due to technical change. The main source of productivity growth of the Dutch dairy farms is technical efficiency change.