Purpose

This paper aims to examine the competitiveness trends and rankings of the Irish dairy sector at the farm and trade levels, relative to selected European Union (EU) Member States, in the context of the removal of the EU milk quota in 2015.

Design/methodology/approach

Competitiveness indicators including partial productivity measures and accountancy-based indicators were used for farm competitiveness, and net export market share and normalised revealed comparative advantage (NRCA) were used for export competitiveness.

Findings

Amongst the countries examined, Ireland had the highest growth in partial productivity indicators and was ranked first with the lowest total costs and cash costs per kg of milk solids post-quota. However, the total economic cost sub-components showed that Irish dairy farmers had high opportunity costs for owned land and labour. While Irish dairy products such as butter and powders have demonstrated growth potential in competitiveness post-quota with Irish butter and whey ranked in top three relative to other countries, other products, i.e. cheese and liquid milk have declined in competitiveness according to key export competitiveness indicators used.

Practical implications

The challenge for Irish dairy farmers is how to mitigate relatively high land and labour costs, which can limit farm competitiveness in the long run. The key players in the Irish dairy industry can now better position themselves in the global dairy market, recognizing the competitiveness dynamics of the different dairy products and their competitors. Policy implications and further areas of research have been identified to help improve the overall competitiveness position. It is surprising that Irish butter is a leader in the EU, yet not much research has been done to understand the market dynamics of this sector.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to use both farm and export competitiveness measures to analyse the Irish dairy industry relative to other countries in the context of quota abolition. Unlike previous studies on dairy export competitiveness, this study has disaggregated the processed dairy products, which allowed for the ranking of countries and comparability across countries using NRCA.

中文翻译：

---

评估爱尔兰乳业的农场和出口竞争力：配额后分析

目的

本文旨在研究在 2015 年取消欧盟牛奶配额的背景下，爱尔兰乳业在农场和贸易层面的竞争力趋势和排名，相对于选定的欧盟 (EU) 成员国。

设计/方法/方法

包括部分生产力措施和基于会计的指标在内的竞争力指标用于农场竞争力，净出口市场份额和标准化显示比较优势（NRCA）用于出口竞争力。

发现

在接受调查的国家中，爱尔兰的部分生产力指标增长最快，并且在配额后每公斤乳固体的总成本和现金成本最低，排名第一。然而，总经济成本子成分表明，爱尔兰奶农拥有土地和劳动力的机会成本很高。虽然黄油和奶粉等爱尔兰乳制品在配额后的竞争力方面显示出增长潜力，爱尔兰黄油和乳清​​相对于其他国家排名前三，但根据关键出口竞争力指标，奶酪和液态奶等其他产品的竞争力下降用过的。

实际影响

爱尔兰奶农面临的挑战是如何降低相对较高的土地和劳动力成本，从长远来看，这可能会限制农场的竞争力。爱尔兰乳制品行业的主要参与者现在可以更好地在全球乳制品市场中定位自己，认识到不同乳制品及其竞争对手的竞争动态。已经确定了政策影响和进一步的研究领域，以帮助提高整体竞争力地位。令人惊讶的是，爱尔兰黄油在欧盟处于领先地位，但尚未进行太多研究来了解该行业的市场动态。

原创性/价值

据作者所知，这项研究是同类研究中首次使用农场和出口竞争力指标来分析爱尔兰乳制品行业相对于其他国家在取消配额的情况下的情况。与以往关于乳制品出口竞争力的研究不同，本研究对加工乳制品进行了分类，从而可以对使用 NRCA 的国家进行排名和国家间的可比性。