Economic Sustainability of Organic Dairy Sheep Systems in Central Spain

Figures & data

Figure 1. Response surface as a function of costs frontiers.

Table 1. Mean values and statistical significance of technical variables of the typological groups defined by Toro-Mujica et al. (2012).

Technical variables		Group
	I	II	III
Flock size, UGM	24.9^a^***	138.7^c	72.6^b
Sheep stocking rate, UGM•ha^-1	0.12^c^***	0.69^a	0.39^b
Pasture area per ewe, ha•ewe^-1	1.6^a^***	0.16^b	0.62^b
Work unit per animal, AWU100 ewes^-1	0.71^a^***	0.53^ab	0.27^b
Work unit per area, AWU 100 ha^-1	0.65^b^*	2.5^a	0.62^b
Milk production, Tonn year^-1	11.186^c^***	88.911^a	47.301^b
Milk productivity, L•ewe^-1• year^-1	75.5^b^**	103.5^a	108.3^a
Supplementary feed, kg•ewe^-1•year^-1	226^b^***	386^a	229^b
Supplementary feed, kg•L^-1	3.6^ab^**	4.1^a	2.2^b
Land in ownership, %	1.7^b^**	50.5^a	20.2^b
Familiar labour, %	100^a^***	51.9^b	93.4^a

AWU, annual work unit [it corresponds to a worker devoted full-time during a year to the agricultural/livestock activity (European Commission, 2012)]. UGM refers to bulls, cows and other cattle that are older than two years and equines of more than six months (European Commission, 2006).

^a-cDifferent letters in the same row denote significant differences among variables.

*P≤0.05;

**P≤0.01;

***P≤0.1.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for the ecological dairy sheep systems of Castilla-La Mancha.

Variable	Mean	Max	Min	Standard deviation	Coefficient of variation, %
Daily milk production, L	97.3	182.6	47.2	31.0	31.9
Labour cost, €/AWU	14,014	30,560	4,240	4,554	32.5
Cost of supplement, €/kg	0.27	0.42	0.12	0.07	26.4
Selling price of milk, €/L	1.04	1.20	0.84	0.10	9.4
Selling price of lamb, €/lamb	41.9	49.6	36.0	2.7	6.5
Flock size	508	1300	99	393	78.6

AWU, annual work unit [it corresponds to a worker devoted full-time during a year to the agricultural/livestock activity (European Commission, 2012)].

*P≤0.05, indicating that the parameter should be included in the model.

Table 3. Parameter values and their statistical significance for each of the six models fitted to the data.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6
α0	10.33	17.49	1.38	3.24	17.34	2.44
P	0.24*	0.02	0.01	0.65	0.001	0.001
αQ	-1.09	-0.83	0.15	1.52	-2.79	0.05
P	0.71	0.58	0.27	0.46	0.02	0.74
βQQ	0.42	0.10	-	-0.29	0.28
P	0.23	0.51	-	0.33	0.01
α1	0.44	-0.80	-0.72	1.29	0.47	0.47
P	0.64	0.36	0.41	0.001	0.001	0.001
αf	-2.18	1.80	1.72	-0.29	0.53	0.53
P	0.48	0.04	0.05	0.37	0.001	0.001
αR	-0.76	-0.63	-1.24	-3.79	0.60	0.71
P	0.81	0.62	0.21	0.06	0.001	0.001
βlf	-0.09	-0.02	-0.03
P	0.36	0.80	0.76
βlR	0.02	-0.12	-0.12
P	0.85	0.01	0.01
βll	0.12	0.20	0.19
P	0.24	0.04	0.05
βRf	-1.98	-0.11	-0.08
P	0.01	0.52	0.61
βff	-0.27	0.37	0.38
P	0.76	0.58	0.56
βRR	0.96	0.37	0.48
P	0.24	0.09	0.00
βQf	1.45			0.07
P	0.02			0.07
βQR	-0.71			0.42
P	0.34			0.03
βQl	-0.13			-0.08
P	0.14			0.01
R^2 fitted	0.85	0.84	0.84	0.83	0.85	0.83

Table 4. Comparisons between groups in terms of technical and economic parameters.

Variable	Efficiency
	Total	High	Medium	Low
Mean efficiency	61.7	82.4^a	61.1^b	44.1^c
Farms, n	31 (100)	8 (26)	14 (45)	9 (29)
Milk production, Tonn•year^-1	48,897	33,529	60,528	44,464
Number of ewes	510.8	350.8	619.3	475.2
Farm size, ha	359.2	347.5	410.5	289.6
Pasture area, ha	227.4	235.0	271.0	152.8
Supplementary feed, Tonn•year^-1	138.13	66.08	149.95	183.78
AWU total	1.88	1.13^a	2.23^b	2.0^ab
AWU 100 ewes^-1	0.47	0.39	0.44	0.60
Milk per ewe, L	97.4	90.2	100.4	98.9
Stocking rate, animal units•ha^-1	0.38	0.21	0.39	0.53
Supplementary feed per ewe, kg•ewe^-1year^-1	242.7	155.4^a	218.5^a	357.9^b
Supplementary feed per liter of milk, kg•L^-1	2.6	2.3^a	2.9^ab	4.2^b
Family labour, %	83.3	94.0	77.3	83.3
Mean cost per liter of milk, ۥL^-1	1.9	1.7	1.78	2.3
Mean cost per ewe, ۥewe^-1	190.0	154.6^a	183.1^a	232.4^b
Total cost, €	90,138	52,595	108,909	94,310
Total income, €	91,577	68,980	109,871	83,206
Profit per farm without subsidies, €	-10.930	7161^b	-13,867^ab	-22,441^a
Profit per farm with subsidies, €	1439	16,385^b	961^ab	-11,104^a
Profit per liter, without subsidies, ۥL^-1	-0.46	-0.135^b	-0.34^ab	-0.95^a
Profit per liter, with subsidies, ۥL^-1	-0.182	0.186^b	-0.065^ab	-0.692^a
Profit per ewe without subsidies, ۥewe^-1	-31.5	6.3^b	-22.6^b	-78.8^a
Profit per ewe with subsidies, €	-7.2	31.6^b	1.8^b	-55.7^a
Gross family income, €	16,614	27,427	15,697	8,427

AWU, annual work unit [it corresponds to a worker devoted full-time during a year to the agricultural/livestock activity (European Commission, 2012)].

^a-cDifferent letters in the same row denote significant differences with P≤0.05. Values in brackets are expressed as percentage.

Table 5. Cost efficiency according to typological group.

Group	Mean, %	Standard deviation, %	Coefficient of variation, %	Min, %	Max, %
I	65.3^b	14.9	22.8	44.4	86.1
II	49.2^a	11.6	23.5	33.5	63.8
III	67.7^b	14.0	20.6	47.5	93.9

^a,bDifferent letters denote significant differences with P≤0.01.

Table 6. Contingency table of the relationship between efficiency costs and typological groups.

		Group
Efficiency	I	II	III
High	33.3%	0.0%	38.5%
Adjusted residues	0.61	-2.1	1.37
Medium	44.4%	44.4%	46.1%
Adjusted residues	-0.05	-0.05	0.09
Low	22.2%	55.6%	15.4%
Adjusted residues	-0.53	2.08	-1.42

Adjusted residues are calculated as the difference between observed and expected frequency. Values greater than +/-2 indicate that the proportion of farms in the category (level of efficiency cost) differ from expected values.

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