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Measurement of agricultural technical efficiencies and the impact of environmental regulations: A data envelopment analysis approach
Abstract
The present study attempts to model undesirable environmental agricultural outputs with the objective of increasing desirable and decreasing undesirable outputs. Piecewise linear frontier technology is specified. Measures of relative technical efficiencies and returns to scale are computed and the impact of endogenously imposed environmental regulations is estimated. The results are compared both at field level and among five cluster groups differing in production practices. Of 134 fields studies, about one-half show increasing returns to scale. Thirty three fields show loss of productivity due to technology restrictions with an average loss of 4.36 bushels per acre over the sample. The Young Business Technocrats and the Irrigated Monocroppers groups show a loss of 12.6 and 5.31 bushels per acre respectively compared to 1.42 bushels per acre of the Near Organic group. Overall these impacts are not interpreted as major. When evaluated under imposed environmental restrictions on production technology, the Near Organic group appears most efficient at the score of 1. This shows that the Near Organic group represents a technically efficient production system of Best Management Practices (BMPs) with minimum environmental damage.
Subject Area
Agricultural economics
Recommended Citation
Ahmed, Muhammad Zulfiqar, "Measurement of agricultural technical efficiencies and the impact of environmental regulations: A data envelopment analysis approach" (1998). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9917817.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9917817