Farm Profitability, Asset-Use Efficiency and Energy-Cost Intensity Across European Farming Systems

European agriculture is increasingly required to remain economically viable while improving resource-use efficiency and reducing exposure to rising input and energy costs. This study examines the relationship between farm profitability, asset-use efficiency and energy-cost intensity across different European farming systems. The analysis is based on FADN/FSDN economic indicators reported by country and farm type for the period 2015–2023. Four types of farming were analysed separately: field crop farms, dairy farms, mixed farms and wine farms. Return on assets was used as the dependent variable, while asset turnover, economic size, fixed asset share, productivity indicators and energy intensity were included as explanatory variables. The empirical analysis combined farm-type-specific panel models with several robustness checks, including common time effects, first-difference specifications and a unified farm-type interaction model. The results show that asset turnover is the most consistently significant correlate of profitability, with a positive association across all the analysed farming systems. Energy intensity is negatively associated with profitability, with the most robust evidence identified in field crop and mixed farms. In dairy and wine farms, the association between energy intensity and profitability was not statistically significant at the 5% level in the main fixed-effects models. Fixed asset share was negatively and statistically significantly associated with profitability only in mixed farms. These findings indicate that profitability-related relationships differ across farming systems and that asset-use efficiency and energy-cost exposure should be interpreted within the structural and production characteristics of each farm type. The study does not aim to identify causal effects, but provides comparative evidence on conditional associations between profitability, accounting-based efficiency indicators and resource-use indicators in European agriculture.