4) Yield dependent variable input costs (vc) were obtained from the Kuratorium für
Technik und Bauwesen in der Landwirtschaft e.V. ("Standarddeckungsbeiträge", KTBL, 2020)
and from the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture ("Deckungsbeiträge und
Kalkulationsdaten", BLfL, 2020) for machinery. Data on natural yields were provided for
the main crops by the German statistical office ("Fachserie. 3, Land- und
Forstwirtschaft, Fischerei. Reihe 33, Landwirtschaftliche Bodennutzung und pflanzliche
Erzeugung", DeStatis, various years) for the main crops and by the Federal Office for
Agriculture and Food ("Milcherzeugung und -verwendung", BLE, various years) for milk
yield per dairy cow at the spatial resolution of counties. Data on the distribution of
the main agricultural production systems at the municipality level were obtained from
the "Thünen-Agraratlas".
For the analysis, we used the land-use data for 2016 and for the cost data the
5-year annual average for the period 2014-2018. For this study we did not consider
labour costs.
We differentiated variable costs for five major production systems based on the
farming typology used in the farm accountancy data network (Commission Regulation (EC)
No 1242/2008). The following systems were differentiated:
(vc_arable) Arable cash crops (including cereals, legumes, potatoes, sugar beets,
field vegetables, oil rape seed, forage crops).
(vc_perm) Permanent crops and horticulture (including fruits, grapevines, hops,
horticultural products, short rotation forestry).
(vc_pig_poultry) Pig and poultry farming.
(vc_dairy) Dairy farming and intensive beef fattening (including: dairy cows, bulls,
corn for biogas production). Costs associated to the production of heifers, grass, hey
and silage are attributed to this type.
(vc_extens) Extensive livestock farming (including pasture management of suckler
cows, sheep, goats and horses).
To avoid distortion of the cluster analysis values for variable costs exceeding the
value of the 99th percentile were set to the 99th-percentile value. This step was
necessary for all production systems except for arable cash crops (vc_arable).