Production risk in the crop farming of the Baltic States, Poland, and Germany

Abstract

Increasing climate volatility has called for further analysis of the risk management measures in agriculture. This paper sheds more light on production risks in the crop farming of northeastern European agriculture. Specifically, the cases of the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) are juxtaposed to those of Poland and Germany. Thus, both economically developed and developing economies are considered in the analysis. The study covers major crops throughout 2004-2022, i.e., considers the post-accession period of the new EU member states. The research relies on the downward coefficients of variation as the hazard measures. The conditional means were obtained by applying the moving average approach. The results suggest that the highest yield risk is observed for wheat and rape, whereas barley stands at the other end of the spectrum. Regarding the country-wise comparison, risk measures were highest in Estonia and lowest for Poland and Germany.