Efficiency and Technology Gap in European Apple Production—A Metafrontier Model for Germany, Italy, and Poland

EU member states have exhibited varying rates of apple production growth. Technical efficiency (TE) estimation is suitable for identifying best‐practice farm performance. This study examined whether the development of the apple sector in Germany, Italy, and Poland was influenced by production efficiency, access to technology, as well as technological change, and assessed regional differences. In doing so, a translog stochastic metafrontier model was applied to farm‐level data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) for the period spanning 2014–2020. The model was estimated with True Random Effects (TRE) and Mundlak True Random Effects (MTRE). We found that the available technology is sub‐optimally used in the three countries, with German farms producing at a level closest to the optimum. Furthermore, Poland had the lowest technology level among the three countries, while Germany and Italy produced close to the metafrontier. We found that subsidies significantly increase inefficiency in apple production in the three countries, while the effects of the share of family labor, and specialization in apple production differed among the countries. Therefore, country‐specific policies are needed to account for regional differences.