Cross Country Analysis of Farm Economic Performance

This report analyses the farm performance data contributed through the OECD Network for Farm-level Analysis. It first compares the distribution of four economic performance indicators across nine participating countries or regions for selected farm types (output and input ratio, and net operating income per unit of labour, land and net worth). The comparative analysis shows significant differences in farm economic performances within countries as well as across countries. It implies that promoting the adoption of existing best practice and improving the resource allocation can lead to a significant improvement in the sector’s performance. The factor analysis found that large farm size is a factor of high economic performance for most types of farms across countries, but it also identified other relevant factors of high performance independent of the farm size factor, such as younger age, higher education, and use of financial leverage.