Costs, income and economic efficiency of dairy sheep flocks

Abstract

Article Details: Received: 2020-10-12 | Accepted: 2020-11-27 | Available online: 2021-01-31 https://doi.org/10.15414/afz.2021.24.mi-prap.98-101 The objective of this study was to analyse costs and incomes from milk/cheese and lamb production in dairy sheep flocks and to evaluate their economic efficiency by calculating the profit/loss that is expressed as the difference between these two economic indicators. Costs were calculated taking into account their individual item structure, revenues were calculated taking into account sales of milk/cheese and lamb production. The analysis included three-year period i.e. years 2017, 2018 and 2019. The object of investigations were twelve and thirteen dairy sheep flocks per year, respectively. Economic indicators were expressed in Eur per feeding day (costs) and/or in Eur per ewe and year (costs, sales, subsidies, profit/loss). Milk and lamb sales did not cover up costs spent on production and accounting for subsidy improved economic efficiency of dairy sheep only to a lower extent. Sheep farming thus produced with the loss. Across years, milk and lamb sales almost unchanged, whereas costs notably increased. No ability to cover up costs with revenues could become an obstacle for further survival of this livestock sector. The increase of both milk yield and lamb production is therefore needed. Keywords: small ruminants, expences, revenues, profit/loss References de Rancourt , M. et al. (2006). Mediterranean sheep and goats production: An uncertain future. Small Ruminant Research , 62, 167–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smallrumres.2005.08.012 Eurostat. (2016). Livestock population in livestock units by type EU-28. Retrieved October, 2, 2020 from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database FAOSTAT. (2019). Food and agricultural data. Retreived October 2, 2020 from http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data Gunlu, A. et al. (2003). Relationship between average milk production costs and some selected technical and socio-economic factors surrounding dairy herds. Indian Journal Animal Sciences , 73(10), 1159–1162. Krupova, Z. et al. (2012). Review of methodologies for costs calculating of ruminants in Slovakia. Jornal of Central European of Agriculture , 13(3), 426–445. https://doi.org/0.5513/JDEA01/13.3.1068 Krupova, Z. et al. (2013). Economics of dairy sheep breeding in the year 2011. Agromagazine , 15(1), 12–13. Krupova, Z. et al. (2014). Impact of variation in production traits, inputs costs and product prices on profitability in multi-purpose sheep. Spanish Jornal of Agricultural Research , 12(4), 902–912. https://doi.org/10.5424/sjar/2014124-6166 Michalickova, M. et al. (2014). Determinants of economic efficiency in dairy cattle and sheep. Slovak Jornal of Animal Science , 47(1), 39–50. Milan, M. J. et al. (2014). Cost structure and profitability of Assaf dairy sheep farms in Spain. Journal of Dairy Science , 97, 5239–5249. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2013-7884 Oravcova, M. and Peskovicova, D. (2008). Genetic nad environmental trends for milk production trends in sheep estimated with test-day model. Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Science , 21(8), 1088–1096. https://doi.org/10.5713/ajas.2008.70700 Oravcova, M. et al. (2020). Costs in dairy sheep flocks in the year 2019. Agromagazine , 22(10), 10. Pamukova, D. and Momchilov, H. (2017). Analysis of revenues and production costs of dairy sheep farms. Trakia Journal of Sciences , 15(Suppl. 1), 277–281. https://doi.org/10.15547/tjs.2017.s.01.050 Trubacova, A. et al. (2019). Costs of agricultural products in the Slovak Republic in 2018. Bratislava: National Agricultural and Food Centre-RIEAF. Tzouramani, I. et al. (2011). An assessment of of the economic performance of organic dairy sheep farming in Greece. Livestock Science , 141, 136–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2011.05.010