A Note on Price Risks in Swiss Crop Production – Empirical Results and Comparisons with other Countries

The liberalization of Swiss agricultural markets will not only decrease crop price levels but is also expected to increase the volatility of prices. Even though these potential increases in price volatilities for Swiss producers are acknowledged as an important fact, no empirical estimates are available yet. To fill this gap, we estimate absolute and relative crop price volatilities of wheat, barley, maize, triticale, potato, rapeseed, and sugar beet applying autoregressive models using annual price data for the period 1991 – 2009. The results for Switzerland are compared with estimates for the USA, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Relative price volatilities, expressed by the coefficient of variation, are found to be lower in Switzerland by a factor of 2 – 3 compared to the other considered countries. For some crops such as potatoes the differences are even higher. An increase in price volatilities of this magnitude due to market liberalization may become a threat to Swiss farmers. Thus, anticipatory actions of policy makers and producers with regard to the development of price risk management strategies might worth to be considered.