Efficiency of biodynamic farms

Annotation: The aim of this article is to introduce theoretical approach to the analysis of the technical efficiency of the biodynamic farms. The biodynamic agriculture is broad topic usually viewed by scholars from the philosophical or biological point of view. The surveys from the economic point of view remind limited. While the organic farming gains the importance in agricultural research with its support from the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, biodynamic stays aside. Both approaches towards the evaluation of the efficiency - parametric or non- parametric - were utilized in the paper. The analysis was done for 4 biodynamic farms in the Czech Republic. Production of the farms was explained by five inputs: material, capital, labor, land and subsidies. Firstly, Farrell's technical efficiency was calculated. Parametric approach was represented by Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and non- parametric by Data envelopment analysis (DEA). The SFA predicted in majority cases lower efficiency level of the input usage by the farms than DEA. While the average efficiency of biodynamic farms varied from 48.67 % to 74.79 % in case of SFA, DEA estimated the efficiency in the interval of 46.85 % to 84.01 %. On the basis of comparison of the analyses results, the appropriate method for further was suggested considering the pros and cons of each method. This article is a starting point for a research financed from internal grant No. 11110/1312/3160 - "Analyza vybranych ukazatelu biodynamickeho zemedelstvi - komparace ve svetovem meritku" of the IGA of the FEM, CULS.