DETERMINANTS OF MILK PRODUCTION PROFITABILITY OF DAIRY FARMS IN THE EU MEMBER STATES

Abstract

The article presents analysis of determinants of milk production profit margin on dairy farms. The research focuses on farms in the EU Member States and is based on statistical data coming from the European Commis-sion's Dairy Farm Reports for 2007-2013. Milk production margin was analysed on the basis of detailed accounts of income and expenses that allowed to conduct multifaceted evaluation of farms' ability to generate income from milk production measured by gross and net margin. Furthermore, the panel data regressions models were applied in order to identify intensity and direction of chosen technological and economic, price and cost characteris-tics' influence on milk production margin. The size of forage area, herd size, cows' milk yield, milk prices and energy and salary costs should be considered , in the light of panel regression parameters, as most influential factors.