Increasing costs for land use challenge the international competitiveness of European arable farming – lessons learned from SUFISA case studies in three different areas

Land prices are key driver of farm profitability and competitiveness. Sales prices and leases are determining the viability and the perspectives of farms and their production systems. Our paper aims to analyse the role of land prices for the competitiveness and sustainability of arable farming in Germany, Poland, and France. We test the combination of two methodological approaches that follow similar objectives but use different data and perspectives. The SUFISA case studies show conditions, challenges, farmers’ strategies and the sustainability of arable farming in selected regions. The analysis of farm economic data, and - more specifically - of the impact of land prices and rents is based on the farm comparison data and analyses of agri benchmark model farms. The latter highlights that costs for the factor land affect the economic situation in all areas. Differences in returns, subsidy payments, and cost structures present the viability of crop farms in the German, French and Polish case study regions. However, results show that farmers cannot increase efficiency by farm enlargement anymore due to lacking access to land. In relation to that, increasing land prices hamper farmers' succession. Due to shrinking margins, German farmers fear they have to abandon well-accepted practices that helped to improve sustainability effects. Although land prices in Poland are lower than in other regions, access to land and high operational costs in cropping are critical issues. Overall, the combination of both methodological approaches is challenging but indicates that the complementarity of the insights are worth further development.