Does Increasing Agricultural Efficiency Contribute to Food Security—Trade‐Offs of Value Addition in Crop Production?

Environmental policy in the EU agriculture has encouraged the adoption of organic farming, extensive grassland systems, reduced stocking rates, set‐aside, afforestation, agrotourism, biofuels and the provision of environmental amenities under agri‐environmental schemes. Initiatives that generate added value and additional income for farmers can sometimes come at the expense of calorie production. Moreover, the dictates of the global market and corporate dominance are driving farmers to specialise in the most profitable crops, which do not necessarily increase food availability. However, it is important to remember that current food systems are not sufficient to meet future global food needs. It can therefore be hypothesised that adding value to agriculture has a trade‐off in terms of reducing calorie‐oriented efficiency. Therefore, the aim of this article is to compare market value‐oriented and calorie‐oriented technical efficiency in a balanced panel of Polish field crop farms (897 units between 2014 and 2022) and to identify the predictors of calorie leakage related to their potential level. For this purpose, the DEA‐SBM approach is combined with several machine learning models. It is shown that in the highest economic size classes of farms, the gap between value‐oriented and calorie‐oriented efficiency is relatively the largest. Field vegetable production and various mixed cropping systems are the systems that stimulate the efficiency gap. It is concluded that the design of individual policies should assess their potential trade‐offs in terms of reduced calorie production efficiency. The agenda for future research should focus on linking decoupled direct payments and support for investment with food sovereignty objectives.