Accessibility to financial resources is considered a prevalent problem in the agricultural sector. We develop an approach to quantify the long-term opportunity costs of financial constraints in relation to peers who do not face any financial constraints. Using data on past financial performance, we assess creditworthiness and the size of an additional accessible bank loan to farmers. Combining this with data on reported expenditure, we determine the accessible finance. We quantify the opportunity cost as the forgone dynamic profit (intertemporal profit in current-value terms) from financial constraints. Using data envelopment analysis, we apply our approach to 264 specialised Dutch dairy farms for the years 2006–2017 and explore the potential impact of changes in finance provision for several scenarios. Our results show an increasing gap between frontrunners and other farmers, as the latter generate progressively less dynamic profit in comparison to their best peers. The gap between the dynamic profit of the average farm and that of its best peers from their production and investment decisions made over the span of 1 year grew from €40,040 in 2009 to €114,548 in 2017. However, the growth is not driven by insufficient access to finance. Financial constraints can only explain 6% of the forgone dynamic profit in 2009 and as little as 1% for 2017. The number of farms classified as financially constrained in comparison to their peers decreases in our sample from 44% in 2009 to 8% in 2017. This suggests that non-financial factors are driving the growing gap.

中文翻译：

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荷兰奶牛场的资金限制有多大？动态利润分析

获得财政资源被认为是农业部门的一个普遍问题。我们开发了一种方法来量化与没有面临任何财务约束的同行相比，财务约束的长期机会成本。利用过去财务表现的数据，我们评估农民的信用度和额外可获得的银行贷款的规模。将此与报告的支出数据相结合，我们确定可获得的资金。我们将机会成本量化为因财务约束而放弃的动态利润（以现值计算的跨期利润）。通过数据包络分析，我们将我们的方法应用于 2006 年至 2017 年 264 个荷兰专业奶牛场，并探讨了几种情景下融资供应变化的潜在影响。我们的结果显示，领先者和其他农民之间的差距越来越大，因为与最好的同行相比，后者产生的动态利润逐渐减少。平均农场与最佳同行在一年内做出的生产和投资决策的动态利润之间的差距从 2009 年的 40,040 欧元扩大到 2017 年的 114,548 欧元。然而，这种增长并不是由于缺乏足够的资金来推动的。获得融资。财务拮据只能解释 2009 年放弃动态利润的 6%，2017 年仅占 1%。在我们的样本中，与同行相比，被归类为财务受限的农场数量从 2009 年的 44% 下降到 2017 年的 8%这表明非财务因素正在推动差距不断扩大。