EU production is important for global poultry markets and is concentrated in a few countries, including Italy. The aim of this study is to investigate the technical efficiency of Italian poultry farms in 2019–2022, characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic and avian influenza, which occurred almost simultaneously and presented poultry farms with important economic challenges. In particular, this study aims to observe how efficiently poultry farms utilized their inputs with regards to controllable or managerial factors and exogenous shocks and factors beyond the firm’s control. Data was retrieved from the RICA database, the Italian section of the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network. After a descriptive analysis, a stochastic frontier model was applied to the panel data to estimate production frontier and firm-specific inefficiency factors. Results reveal the relevance of certain cost categories (feed, water, fuel, and electricity) and their increase over the observed period. Current and capital costs have positive and significant impacts on the value of production. As regards the determinants of technical efficiency, a greater endowment of some inputs (labor and farm area) and the sizes of farms in terms of livestock units are correlated with an improvement in the technical efficiency of farms.

In recent years, several events have occurred that may have impacted the economic performance of the entire poultry sector and of individual farms. In particular, in the period 2019-2022, recurrent events, such as the avian influenza epidemics, occurred in conjunction with the exceptional COVID-19 pandemic. This study carries out a finan-cial analysis of a subpopulation of Italian poultry farms over this period, with the aim of assessing the effects on individual farms and identifying different perfor-mance-based profiles. Italy is one of the leading producers of poultry products in Eu-rope, and the poultry sector is a significant part of the national livestock economy. The study applies descriptive statistics and cluster analysis to several items drawn from the balance sheets and income statements of farms. The descriptive analysis reveals that the sector has generally recovered from the negative effects of external shocks. The segmentation analysis reveals the groups of farms with the best financial profiles in terms of economic sustainability, solidity and recoverability, as well as those that emerged from the period in a worse situation.

EU production is important on global poultry markets and is concentrated in a few coun-tries, among which Italy. Aim of the study is to investigate the technical efficiency of Ital-ian poultry farms in years 2019-2022 characterized by Covid-19 pandemic and avian in-fluenza that occurred almost simultaneously and that presented poultry farms with im-portant economic challenges. In particular, the study aims to observe how efficiently poultry farms utilized their inputs due to controllable or managerial factors and to exoge-nous shocks and factors beyond the firm's control. Data was retrieved from the RICA da-tabase, the Italian section of the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network. After a descriptive analysis, a Stochastic Frontier Model was applied to the panel data to estimate the pro-duction frontier and firm-specific inefficiency factors. The results reveal the relevance of certain cost categories (feed, water, fuel and electricity) and their increase over the ob-served period. Current and capital costs have a positive and significant impact on the value of production. As regards the determinants of technical efficiency, a greater endow-ment of some inputs (labor, feed, and water) and the size of farms in terms of livestock units are correlated with an improvement in the technical efficiency of farms.