不同规模农户农业生产效率差异及影响因素研究——基于DEA-Tobit模型的实证分析

文章基于小麦主产区4个省份946个不同规模农户的调查数据,利用DEA模型和Tobit回归模型分析了小农户和家庭农场农业生产效率的影响机制。结果表明:家庭农场的农业生产效率明显高于小农户的农业生产效率,家庭农场的生产效率与经营规模呈倒"U"型变化特征;在影响因素方面,土地肥沃程度与农业技术指导对小农户和家庭农场的农业生产效率均有显著正向影响;家庭农场更倾向于通过提高受教育程度和增加单块耕地面积来提升农业生产效率;而小农户的农业生产效率对农户年龄和农户从事农作物种植年限呈现出较强的依赖性。基于此,建议有针对性地加大农业技术指导,适度扩大农业生产经营规模,加强小农户与新型农业经营主体之间的合作与联合,促进农业生产向高质量发展。     

Technical efficiency of small scale farmers: An application of the stochastic frontier production function to rural and urban farmers in Ondo State,Nigeria

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to estimate empirically the technical efficiency of rural and urban small-scale farmers in Ondo State, Nigeria, using the stochastic frontier production function. With the rapid urbanization being currently experienced in Nigeria, the socio-economic and the farming environment in both the rural and urban centres are undergoing transformation. This study involved collection and analysis of data on 200 food crop farmers from rural and urban centres in Ondo state of Nigeria. The results of analysis show that there are wide differences in the socio-economic and production inputs of the farmers from rural and urban centres. While farmers from rural centres have relatively larger farms, the urban farmers have better access to production inputs, especially, fertilizer. However, rural farmers, with a mean technical efficiency of 0.66 are found to be more technically efficient than urban farmers, who have a mean technical efficiency of 0.57. There is a wide confidence interval around the point estimates of the technical efficiency scores. Level of education, farming experience and land are found to have negative effects on technical inefficiency of both rural and urban farms. The marginal effect of inefficiency variables is, however, found to be highest for education among both rural and urban farms.     

TECHNOLOGY,POLICY DISTORTIONS,AND THE RISE OF LARGE FARMS

Between 1900 and 2002, mean farm size in the United States tripled; productive resources were increasingly concentrated in large farms. These observations are difficult to explain as results of profit maximization by farmers in a frictionless equilibrium model, given exogenous factor endowment and technology. I show that notable shifts in the farm size distribution coincided with important changes in farm legislation and that farm programs provided larger farms more subsidy per dollar of output produced. These farm‐level distortions are crucial for the increasing dominance of large farms but have little impact on employment and productivity in agriculture.     

Measuring technical efficiency in the Greek agricultural sector

This paper measures the degree of technical efficiency of Greek farms at discrete points in time. Stochastic frontier production functions are estimated from four annual Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) surveys of the 1992–1995 period. From the results, a measure of technical efficiency is calculated for each farm for each year. The four distributions of technical efficiency values are examined and compared. All four samples show a wide range of farm-specific technical efficiency but efficiency is improving over the period. The paper also presents frontier estimates for small and large farms classified according to economic size. In that case, technical efficiency measures are calculated and their distributions are examined and compared. The results show that large farms are more efficient than small farms. However, efficiency is improving in both size farms over the period. In general, the results of this study indicate that there is substantial scope for improving technical efficiency of Greek farms.     

Determinants of technical efficiency of crop and livestock farms in Poland

Poland, one of the candidate countries for European Union membership, is currently experiencing acute structural problems within its agriculture sector. This article analyses technical efficiency and its determinants for a panel of individual farms in Poland specialized in crop and livestock production in 2000. Technical efficiency is estimated with stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and confidence intervals are constructed. Determinants of inefficiency are also evaluated. The SFA results are compared with results using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). On average, livestock farms are more technically efficient than crop farms. For both specializations, the size–efficiency relationship is positive, that is large farms are more efficient. The SFA findings are generally supported by the DEA results. Soil quality and the degree of integration with downstream markets are highly important determinants of efficiency. The use of factor markets (land and labour) is important for crop farms, while livestock farms can rely on family labour and own land. Also, education is a constraint to efficiency particularly for crop farms.     

Technical efficiency measures for olive-growing farms in Crete, Greece

This study attempts to contribute to the productivity literature of the agriculture of developing countries by exploring the distribution of technical efficiency over time among olive-growing farms operating in the southern part of Greece—specifically, the island of Crete. A balanced panel data set during the period 1987–93 is utilized for the estimation of the stochastic production frontier. The results show decreasing efficiency for farms since 1987 and suggest the need for a development strategy to improve their economic performance in the context of expected major changes in the Common Agricultural Policy. A further result is that farm size, the farmer's education, the existence of an improvement plan, and land fragmentation are the most important factors explaining inter-farm variation in efficiency.     

How efficient is maize production among smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe? A comparison of semiparametric and parametric frontier efficiency analyses

The controversial Fast Track Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe that redistributes commercially-owned farmland to smallholder households has caused concerns about the efficiency of agricultural production in the country. In this paper, we estimate the efficiency of resource use among smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe when producing maize, the staple crop in the country. Using both a semiparametric model and a fully parametric stochastic frontier model, we find significant production shortfalls for smallholder maize production. While labor, capital, and land all significantly affect the total output, the estimated mean efficiency score for farms with less than 10 hectares of land (A1) appears to be under 0.75, and for the entire sample (A1 and A2) it ranges between 0.595 and 0.772. There clearly exists a great potential for maize farmers to improve the technical efficiency and increase the total output. Gender and age of the household head, access to extension services, and activities of other crops significantly affect the technical efficiency of smallholder maize production in Zimbabwe. We also find that all farms operate under increasing returns to scale and that the technical efficiency score tends to increase with the level of output.     

Technical and scale efficiencies of meat goat farms in the USA

This study determines i) scale and technical efficiencies, ii) marginal productive contributions for inputs and outputs and iii) efficiency drivers of meat goat farms in the USA. We estimate an input distance function (IDF) using a stochastic production frontier (SPF) technique. The average technical efficiency (TE) for the USA meat goat whole farm was 0.74. The operator education level, percentage of annual net farm income from the goat operation, regional differences and holding of an off farm job are the efficiency drivers of USA meat goat farms. We find increasing returns to scale (RTS) for USA meat goat farms. Our results suggest that USA meat goat farms can be scale efficient if their optimal size of operation is greater than approximately 64 goats or greater than 40 breeding does. Empirical Monte Carlo (MC) simulation techniques show the consistency of finite-sample properties for the input distance function.     

规模化养殖对我国肉鸡生产效率的影响——基于随机前沿生产函数的实证分析

采用随机前沿方法,利用2004—2010年我国24个省份的肉鸡生产数据,实证分析了规模化养殖对我国肉鸡生产效率的影响,并对不同养殖规模的肉鸡生产效率进行了测度和比较。结果显示:规模化养殖很大程度上提高了我国肉鸡生产效率,中规模养殖使肉鸡生产效率提高了16.89%,大规模养殖使肉鸡生产效率提高了57.62%;我国肉鸡生产效率的地区差异较大,且南方地区不同养殖规模的肉鸡生产效率存在显著差异,而北方地区的这种差异较小;标准化规模养殖程度不高是南方地区的肉鸡生产效率总体偏低且不同养殖规模的肉鸡生产效率存在较大差异的主要原因。     

Assessing the impact of economic liberalization across countries: a comparison of dairy industry efficiency in Canada and the USA

This paper examines and compares the technical efficiency measures of Ontario and New York dairy producers for the period 1992 to 1998. A nonparametric stochastic frontier model is introduced to estimate technical efficiency. The backfitting algorithm of Breiman and Friedman is used to estimate the frontier. Empirical results indicate that during the period of study, New York dairy farmers produced milk more efficiently than Ontario dairy producers, but the magnitude of the difference was small. The estimated mean technical efficiency for the former group is 0.602 as compared to 0.532 for the latter. The results also indicated that over time, dairy farms in both regions improved their level of technical efficiency. Furthermore, no correlation was found between farm size and estimated technical efficiency.     

Technical Efficiency in Australian Textile and Clothing Firms: Evidence From the Business Longitudinal Survey

This paper estimates technical efficiency of Australian textile and clothing firms based on the data obtained from the Business Longitudinal Survey (BLS) conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Using a Cobb Douglas stochastic production frontier the paper examines firm level technical efficiency in the time varying inefficiency effect model with technical inefficiency effects assumed as an independently distributed truncated normal variable. Estimates of the production frontier revealed significant but small elasticities of labour and capital for textile and clothing firms, respectively, and a negative (but insignificant) Hicks neutral technical change for both. Estimated coefficients of the explanatory variables for inefficiency effects indicated that technical efficiency varied significantly according to firms' age, size, capital intensity, proportion of non-production to total workers and type of legal status. Predicted firm specific efficiency varied from 16 per cent to 95 per cent and mean efficiency ranged between 30 to 70 per cent. In view of these results policies have been suggested to improve technical efficiency of the firms as well as productivity growth of the sub sectors.     

Productivity effects of land rental market operation in Ethiopia: evidence from a matched tenant–landlord sample

As countries increasingly strive to transform their economies from agriculture‐based into a diversified one, land rental will become of greater importance. It will thus be critical to complement research on the efficiency of specific land rental arrangements such as sharecropping with an inquiry into the broader productivity impacts of the land rental market. Plot‐level data for a matched landlord–tenant sample in an environment where sharecropping dominates allow us to explore both issues. We find that pure output sharing leads to significantly lower levels of efficiency that can be attenuated by monitoring while the inefficiency disappears if inputs are shared as well. Rentals transfer land to more productive producers but realization of this productivity advantage is prevented by the inefficiency of contractual arrangements, suggesting changes that would prompt adoption of different contractual arrangements could have significant benefits.     

Grain and sunflower on Russian farms in 2001: how efficient is crop production?

An unusually detailed sample of large farms in Rostov, Ivanovo and Nizhny Novgorod regions of Russia in 2001 allows microeconomic examination of the production of grain and sunflower crops on Russian farms. Farms are found to have some excess capital and labour, but not land and other types of capital. New operators are found to be more efficient than other farms thought they do not necessarily produce more output. Neither rural infrastructure, location nor specialisation has a clear impact on farm efficiency. How workers are paid is found to be a potential short‐term method for improving farm efficiency that would not involve major farm restructuring.     

Land use intensification potential in slash-and-burn farming through improvements in technical efficiency

Much attention is being paid to find alternative land use options in slash-and-burn (SaB) farming (or forest–fallow-based shifting cultivation) systems. The conservation objective is often twofold; that is, to discourage farmers from expanding into the forest frontier and to reduce the ecological damage from burning plots. Options include the total abandonment of forest plots, the adoption of productivity increasing green revolution-type technologies, and the application of modern ‘evergreen’ agroforestry knowledge. This paper evaluates another alternative: the intensification of land use by improving technical efficiency in farming. This involves the reduction of land clearing while at the same time maintaining crop output levels and the local (and traditional) low-input technology. The potential for such land use intensification is empirically assessed with ecological and socioeconomic household data from Yucatan (Mexico). The methodology is based on both parametric and nonparametric output and input distance functions. In addition, the sources of inefficiency are addressed. The results of the analysis suggest that on-and off-farm labour diversification can play a key role to help shifting cultivating households to improve their technical efficiency in farming and thus to help to intensify land use. Furthermore, while the empirical results point towards the positive effect of soil fertility, mainly determined by the length of forest fallows, on crop output levels, farmers appear to overcome the ecological constraint of farming in less fertile soils by being more technically efficient.     

Did the Thai rice-pledging programme improve the economic performance and viability of rice farming?

This article evaluates impacts of the rice-pledging programme on the economic performance and viability of rice farming in Thailand. It also investigates whether the effects of the programme are heterogeneous across different farm types using the propensity score matching technique to address the self-selection bias in the farm-level data set. We found that the programme enhanced the economic performance less than hoped for. Overall, the programme was estimated to improve the net direct farm income for participating farms by $175.12–$194.82 per hectare. Taking into account the heterogeneous effects of the programme across farm types, we calculated that the greatest effects may be realized by farmers within the small farms subsample, at $404.41–$439.85 per hectare, but only $139.80–$213.36 per hectare for midsize farms, and $138.82–$173.34 per hectare for large farms. With regard to the economic viability of the programme, we discovered that it had an insignificant effect on farm modernization investment initiatives. Thus, future strategies incorporated into the programme that better control increases in production costs, improve small farmers’ access to the programme and require participating farms to spend a portion of the money received on farm modernization may improve long-run benefits of the programme.     

Economic efficiency adjusted for risk preferences

This study investigates the impact of risk preferences on cost and revenue efficiency for a sample of farms. Risk preference scores were used to measure risk aversion. Cost and revenue efficiency were estimated using traditional input and output measures, and then re-estimated including each farm’s risk preference score. Comparisons were made between farms with and without a change in efficiency when each farm’s risk preference was included in the analysis. As expected, risk preference plays an important role in explaining farm inefficiency. Failure to account for risk preferences overstates inefficiency, particularly for slightly risk averse and risk neutral farms.     

The relative efficiency of slave agriculture: a comment

In their book Time on the Cross, Fogel and Engerman (FE) present evidence that average factor productivity was greater for larger Southern slave farms in 1860 than for both free farms and smaller slave farms. In a recent article, Field (1988) lends support to the FE theory by finding that an upward shift in the production function occurs for slave farms at 15 slaves, the size at which FE propose that gang labour became feasible. In a more recent article, Grabowski and Pasurka (GP) contradict both FE and Field by finding that there was no relationship between the size of slave farms and their efficiency. The present paper extends both GP's and Field's work and refines a point made by FE. We distinguish between a technological advantage due to the gang labour system and revenue inefficiency due both to the incentive structure of slavery and the repugnance of gang labour, two factors which foster rational shirking and resistance by slaves. That is, we propose that relative to small slave farms, large slave farms may have enjoyed a higher revenue frontier but that actual output and revenue fell farther below their frontier. Our construction is consistent with the historical view that emphasizes the harshness of slavery, the repugnance of the gang labour system, and the rational resisting behaviour of the slaves. We test this hypothesis with the stochastic frontier function approach as did GP. However, our findings contradict them. We find, consistent with both FE and Field, that large slave farms exhibited superior technology over small farms. More importantly, we find empirical confirmation of our theory that large slave farms suffered greater revenue inefficiency than smaller slave farms.     

Contract farmer and poultry farm efficiency in Bangladesh: a data envelopment analysis

The objective of this article is to determine the efficiency of the poultry farm in Bangladesh and to assess the influence of contract farming system, using a data envelopment analysis. Seventy-five commercial poultry farms (25 and 50 independent and contract farms, respectively) were randomly selected. The results reveal that efficiency scores vary across sample farms. To explain some of these variations, the efficiency scores were regressed on some human capital variables and farming system using a Tobit model. The study also estimates elasticities to provide the information on the magnitude of the influence of variables on Technical Efficiency (TE), Allocative Efficiency (AE) and Economic Efficiency (EE). The results show that the contracting system is positively and significantly related to the farm's TE, AE and EE. This is expected because under contractual agreement, in order to obtain sufficient supplies of the right quality of poultry meat at the right time, the company provides technical know how assistance through company's recruited supervisor, production inputs and services, and production credit along with intensive supervision, which in turn improves farm efficiency. Thus, by receiving technical know how contract farmers have gained more knowledge on their resource and practices, which enables them to use resources more efficiently. Empirical results can provide crucial information to policy makers that improve poultry farm efficiency.     

Sources of efficiency,productivity and output growth in Botswana agriculture

The purpose of this study is to explore reasons for the decline in agricultural performance in Botswana that has occurred during the implementation of a variety of policy measures, as well as the introduction of new technologies, and to identify ways in which it might be reversed. Panel data from six regions in Botswana (period 1979–2012) is analyzed with a stochastic output distance function and inefficiency effects model. We decompose agricultural output growth into; total factor productivity (TFP ) and changes in input use (factors of production). TFP is further decomposed into scale effects, technical efficiency and technological change. The results show that over the study period agricultural output grew at a very low rate of 0.072 percent per year, which is largely due to a growth in factors of production at 0.071 percent per year rather than TFP growth (which declined at 0.003 percent per year). We found that the decline in productivity has been due to technological regress and low growth in technical efficiency and scale efficiency. Policy options aimed at improving agricultural productivity and output growth will require the strengthening of extension services; improving the agronomic and husbandry management skills of farmers through training; and by encouraging farmers to adopt and utilize technologies that have been provided under existing policy programs.     

Analysis of production efficiency of beef cow/calf farms in Alberta

This article measures production efficiency across cow–calf farms in Alberta, and examines the sources of variation in efficiency. Average technical, allocative and economic efficiencies are, respectively, 83%, 78% and 67%. Biological efficiency (increased conception, calving and weaning rates), larger herd size, higher share of family labour and greater expense for bedding material reduce inefficiency. Inefficiency was also related to receipt of government subsidies.