Productivity development and regional specificities of economies of scale of specialised farms in Central and Eastern European (EU 10) agriculture (2005‒2016)

The paper explores which farm types by specialisation direction2 (ten different types) and at what farm sizes by physical size3 (five categories) of specialised farms backed more production growth and productivity development in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs, EU104) over the period of 2005‒2016. We compare EU10 average figures to EU27/15 averages and outline the changes by specialisation in total resource use of (i) labour (AWU), (ii) land (UAA) as well as in (iii) average farm size (UAA/specialised farms), (iv) total farm productivity (SO/farm), (v) labour productivity (SO/AWU) and (vi) area productivity (SO/UAA). We conclude that production and productivity growth of specialised farms in EU 10 differs by country and by type and size of farming and, each CEEC has followed her own path of farm structure development in line with the country’s tradition and economic possibilities. We give regional characteristics of development in main specialisation types broken down to 5 farm size categories. We concluded the number of cereal farms increased in 6 out of 10 countries in all farm size categories and that of cattle farms went up in 5 out of EU 10 from 2005 to 2016. Farms with these two specializations have significantly extended agriculture land use and more than tripled production, but used more labour compared to basis year. SO/Farm/UAA/AWU productivity indicators of cereal farms increased quite a bit in most farm size categories in all EU 10 countries to a less extent in cattle, poultry pig and dairy farms. Growth in area productivity was led by pig, poultry, and cereal farms at EU 10 level. Growth of the three productivity indicators in EU 10 are scattered quite a bit by farm types, and by countries but generally was headed by three farm size categories as 5‒19.9 ha, 20‒49.9 ha and 50‒99.9 ha. However, the distance between EU10 and EU15 related to the level of production, land, and labour productivity still shows wide gap which needs to further narrow in the coming years.