Evaluating the Performances of Livestock Production Management. An Empirical Analysis of EU Countries
At national level the livestock production domain is passing through severe changes as it needs to adapt to the European framework promoted in the European Union. The micro farms are lowering their importance and are replaced by larger facilities which have a higher economic competitiveness and also an increased sustainability. In this context, revealing the performance gap between Romanian livestock production and other EU member states is regarded by the policymakers with an increased attention. This paper aims to evaluate the performances of livestock production management of 28 EU countries in 2014 using the hierarchical cluster analysis and to analyze the performance gap between Romania and the other EU states. In order to do that, data for livestock production by type of animals is used. The empirical results revealed the existence of six clusters of countries. France, Spain, Germany and United Kingdom are the main actors in the field, forming each a separate class. There is a separate cluster formed by Netherlands, Poland and Denmark and the rest of the countries. From the livestock production perspective, Romania forms a subclass with Greece and Italy.
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