Equivalent amounts of soybeans required for covering the primary inputs on selected family farms in Vojvodina

Abstract

© 2015, National Centre for Agrarian Sciences. All Rights Reserved. In recent years, the area devoted to industrial crops in the AP Vojvodina has recorded an increasing trend at the expense of less intensive crops. Therefore, the soybean has especially gained prominence and nowadays accounts for 8% of the total arable land in the province. The future of this trend primarily depends on economic results of soybean production. Since economic results of any production are based on investments on one hand and achieved production value on the other, this paper provides a trend analysis of the basic material investments and the achieved results in the soybean production within the period 2007-2013, as well as their relative interrelation. The purpose is to determine the equivalent amounts of soybeans required for covering the primary inputs and to review the possibilities for further soybean development in the observed area. Since the researches to date have indicated that intermediate goods and fuel constitute up to 2/3 of the total costs within the cost structure of soybean production on family farms in Vojvodina, the analysis was circumscribed to these particular inputs. The obtained results show that the equivalent amounts of soybeans, required for purchasing basic intermediate goods and fuel, varied during the entire observed period, thus directly affecting the economic status of the crop. Covering the costs of basic intermediate goods and fuel per hectare necessitated on average 761 kg of soybeans, which equalled 23% of the average yield. During the most part of the observed period, the so-called external parity grew detrimental to the outputs. It would indubitably result in the producers’ loss of interest in soybeans if similar occurrences had not been recorded in other crops as well. The favourable so-called internal parity (between crops) facilitated the competitiveness of soybeans, mainly regarding the selling price in relation to wheat and corn, and even increased the soybean share in the planting structure.