Return on sales and wheat yields per hectare of European agricultural entities

Abstract

Performance of agricultural entities can be observed from several different perspectives: using macroeconomic indicators, the quantity of agricultural production units, or by measuring the profitability. The paper present focuses on the relationship between profitability, return on sales (ROS) and wheat yields per hectare in agricultural entities in member states of the European Union (EU), divided into size categories by quantity standard output (SO). Due to the high proportion of subsidies in agriculture, the ROS indicator was rated in two versions: including subsidies and excluding subsidies. The aim of the paper is to confirm or refute the mutual relationship between these indicators, i.e. wheat yields per hectare, return on sales, and the size of the farm. The comparison is performed by means of indicators of descriptive statistics and tests of mathematical statistics. The results of the research show that return on sales drops with the size of the farm, while yields per hectare grow.