Farm performance and support in Central and Western Europe: A comparison of Hungary and France

The paper investigates the difference in technical efficiency and in productivity change, and the technology gaps, between French and Hungarian farms in the dairy and cereal, oilseeds and proteinseeds (COP) sectors during the period 2001-2004. The analyses are performed with national FADN data and the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach under each country’s respective frontier and under a metafrontier. Results revealed that in both the dairy and the COP sectors, Hungarian farms’ technology was the more productive, despite a technological deterioration. This suggests technological advantages for large-scale (Hungarian) over small-scale (French) farming in these two sectors. These findings may also be explained by the higher policy support in France. Subsidies received by farms have indeed a stronger negative impact on technical efficiency for French farms than for Hungarian farms, and a negative impact on the ability to lead the technology only for French farms.