Vilka faktorer påverkar ett mjölkföretags tillväxt? : en jämförelse mellan Sverige och Danmark

Abstract: Dairy farms have during a long time been under pressure and this situation was aggravated during the spring and summer of 2009, when profitability declined to historically low levels. Lower milk price and relatively high input prices have caused Swedish dairy farms great liquidity concerns and profitability problems. For a long time, Denmark has been identified as a leading country for the agrarian development with a leading structural rationalization and willingness to grow. In 2009, it was shown that the Danish agriculture, which is generally more leveraged, has difficulties in maintaining profitability and when market price of land started to fall, the proportion of technically insolvent agricultural enterprises rose dramatically. In light of this prevailing situation, this study highlights differences between Denmark and Sweden with the hope to learn from each other. The study aims to identify the main factors influencing the Swedish and Danish dairy farmers decision making about their farm development and thereby contributes to the different rates of development between the countries. The study has adapted an exploratory approach, which means that the study seeks broad, and focuses on identifying the areas where differences exist. The explorative approach and geographical distance contributed to the choice of a quantitative survey, in form of a mail questionnaire. With four hypotheses, several aspects of the purpose are tested and the results of the study show that two could be rejected. These were the hypotheses that the Danish dairy farms experienced a more favorable business environment and that they have more business-oriented motivations and values. The hypotheses concerning Danish dairy farmers experiencing more strength in their farms and that Danish dairy farmers are more active in their role as managers are supported by empirical evidence, where there were significant differences on several points. Dairy farms in both countries have similar motivations and values in their business, but the Danish dairy farmers have a higher drive to continue developing because of their personal characteristics, farm conditions, interest, business confidence and use of strategic management. The strongest reason for Swedish and Danish dairy farmers deciding to phase out their production is the lack of successors. The Swedish dairy farmers who plan to develop their business feel hindered by the difficulty of finding additional land, while the Danish dairy farmers planning to develop their business feel that laws and rules are the strongest hindrance. Since the survey results are analyzed country by country it has a large degree of generalization and it is likely that there are relatively large groups of dairy farms who are more or less effective, have a greater or lesser confidence, and so on in each country. This means that the result's explanatory power varies between individual dairy farms. An analysis of the dairy farms, which have more than 100 cows, was also carried out. This analysis was based on the difference in mean values without going through statistical tests, because only 14% of Swedish respondents had over 100 cows. The result shows that it is no longer any differences in educational level between the groups, the Swedish dairy farmers are younger, have similar farm size, but still has a less positive view of their business, not as much interest in the production and are not as active in their use of strategic management compared to the Danish famers with a head size over 100 cows.