Crop-Livestock Farming Systems Assessment in Europe

To undertake an economic analysis of mixed and specialist farms the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) was utilised as it provides a common dataset of farm economic data across EU member states (FADN, 2014). Additionally, the analysis would be extended to Switzerland therefore for the Swiss analysis the Swiss Farm Accountancy Data Network (SFADN) was utilised which is comparable with the FADN variables. Whilst both datasets comprise over 3000 variables, these are primarily economically based with few physical values, so analysis beyond economics was limited, but the sample size provides statistical confidence, especially when three years of data (2008-2010) are combined to allow for year to year price fluctuations and other differences such as weather.

The existing FADN mixed farming definition is based upon the economic standard output (FADN, 2014) of a farm. In simple terms a farm is classified as mixed if it has no dominant single output and comprises mixed economic output from different enterprises (including mixed cropping). Various sub-categories further refine mixed farms into cropping, livestock and other categories, though these may include a wide diversity of farms. Whilst economically mixed, it cannot be assumed that these farms are integrated in terms of material transfer. The classification also limits the comparison of specialised vs. mixed farms as the mixed farms can be quite diverse and it may not be appropriate for comparison.

To enable an improved comparison to be made between mixed and specialised farms, it was therefore necessary for FADN mixed farm types to be re-classified into the specialised farm types. This was undertaken by re-classifying each holding based upon its largest enterprise output. Therefore a FADN “mixed” farm with dairying as its largest output would be re-classified as “dairy”. Each Cantogether farm type would then be split into specialised, mixed and integrated systems through a new typology system developed to allow for their comparison. Therefore each FADN holding was classified according to the FADN “Particular type of farming” farm typology classification. Use of the FADN 4 digit typology (Particular type of farm), allowed for more accurate allocation of farms, as shown below in Table below.

With five farm types (based upon their primary economic output), a second typology was required to determine the production system on each farm; mixed from specialised farms; and in particular those that had integrated enterprises (transfer of nutrients). This would allow for a direct comparison between, for example; specialized grassland dairy farms vs. mixed dairy farms that feed a proportion of their homegrown crops to their dairy livestock.

An initial outline was proposed and discussed at a workshop with project partners. After some amendments were implemented the flow chart for determining the level of integration was finalised. The flowchart structure presented (figure below) indicates how each farm within the FADN dataset was classified with a second digit to signify its level of integration between enterprises.

To use this flowchart, the first step was to determine if a holding utilised land (i.e. is the Utilisable Agricultural Area (UAA) >0?). Farms with no land or livestock were discarded, whilst farms with livestock but no land were assumed to be land-less industrial units. Whilst these industrial types of units are common in some regions they are difficult to compare to farms with land, especially when the focus of the project was to establish the level of benefits provided through mixed or integrated farming systems.

Farms with land but no livestock were assumed to be specialist cropping farms within the Fieldcropping (CROP) and Horticulture & Permanent Crops (HORT) farm types. If a farm utilised land and livestock the next stage was to determine the land use on the farm. If the farm was not involved in cash crops it was assumed to be forage based, and these farms were then further split between those that were grassland pasture based and those that grew forage crops such as maize, alfalfa.

For farms with cropping, the level of integration of the crop and livestock enterprises needed to be determined, for which the FADN variable for homegrown feed value was utilised. Farms with less than 10% of their total feed expenditure from homegrown feed were assumed to be physically mixed farms with a low level of integration e.g. a mixed dairy and cereal farm where the dairy cows are fed on purchased concentrate feeds whilst the cereal grain is sold to an external buyer. If the level of homegrown feed was calculated to be between 10% and 50% the farm is assumed to be semi-integrated, with a substantial proportion of feed produced on the farm, and the final category was for farms that utilise homegrown feed for over 50% of the total feed expenditure and were assumed to be fully integrated. Ideally, other factors such as manure and bedding would be included but these physical variables were not available through the FADN database.

The flowchart was implemented through a spreadsheet comprising the combined EU/Swiss FADN dataset for three years (2007-2009), providing data for 243,806 farm holdings across the five farm types. For the subsequent statistical analysis, farm type/system sample sizes of less than 100 farms were excluded to provide statistical confidence in the analysis and exclude outlier holdings.

Table below indicates the expected CANTOGETHER comparison matrix. Some farm type/system combinations were not applicable e.g. as would be expected there were no dairy farm types with a specialist cropping system. (Industrial livestock holdings were also excluded due to the difficulties in comparing them with typical farms).

Following the classification of all farms within the dataset, this was then transferred into a statistical package (SPSS software: IBM, 2013). This would allow comparative analysis of the varying systems within each farm type, and provide an indication of statistical differences