A magyarországi meghatározó árutermelő juhászatok üzemtani elemzése

Hajnalka Madai, Viktória Vida, Bence Jávor and András Nábrádi

GAZDÁLKODÁS: Scientific Journal on Agricultural Economics, 2025, vol. 67, issue 04

Abstract: The sheep sector has been characterized by negative profitability and uncompetitive technological indicators since EU accession, single market, export sales and stagnant herd numbers. The increase in the selling price of lamb in 2020–2022 could have been an outstanding opportunity for high-quality farms if input prices had not increased even more. Based on the data prepared by the Sectoral Cost and Income Information Department of the Institute of Agricultural Economics (AKI) and projected on the production and export-import numbers of the sheep and goat sector, our aim was to examine which factors influenced the results achieved over the past 18 years. The farms examined are considered to be of good quality in domestic terms, therefore the results can be considered well-founded by evaluating the data. During the analysis, we determined the determining elements of the total production cost on an average of 18 years, such as feed costs, labor costs, depreciation of breeding animals, and animal health costs, which accounted for 81% of the total production cost. According to the published methodological approach, we showed the effects of changes in feed costs, labor costs, breeding animal value differences, and animal health costs. On an average of 18 years, feed costs accounted for nearly 53% of the total production cost, wages and contributions accounted for an average of 15.25%, while animal health costs accounted for 4.47%. Knowing the factors affecting income, we examined in which areas it is possible to improve the sectoral result, which is primarily based on the producer and not on the free market mechanism. Our hypothesis is that the profitability of domestic sheep farming is low, and on average it is unprofitable in the years examined, which can be primarily attributed to the disproportion between low reproduction rates and high production costs. Accordingly, we performed break-even calculations, with which we examined the minimum percentage by which revenues would have to increase – with special emphasis on the reproduction rate – so that the sector would not be unprofitable (with or without support). We showed on average over 18 years that in the case of factors influencing production value, the value calculated for live lambs accounted for 67.44% of revenues. The revenue calculated after support was the second highest, exceeding 16% of the total production value. When looking at the development of the results, we found that in 18 years, the result was positive only in 2006 – without support – and even then only at a value of 295 HUF/doe. Based on the sensitivity analysis and the break-even calculations, the data show that in order to avoid losses, the reproduction rate should be increased by at least 23% on average, which corresponds to a minimum of 1.27 instead of 1.03 lambs/mother. A higher rate should be achieved if prices do not increase, if the support does not change or even decreases, and assuming that production costs do not change either.Due to the state of the economy, it is also reasonable to consider the need for growth in the case of cost factors, i.e., knowing the figures, we can assume that a reproduction rate of 1.5 is the value that sheep farms should achieve on average in order to begin and then implement expanded reproduction.

Keywords: Livestock Production/Industries; Production Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:gazdal:369026

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.369026

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