Technical Efficiency in Organic and Conventional Farming: Evidence from Italian Cereal Farms
No hay miniatura disponible
Fecha
Autores
Título de la revista
ISSN de la revista
Título del volumen
Editor
Resumen
Descripción
A stochastic frontier production model was applied to estimate technical efficiency in a
sample of Italian organic and conventional cereal farms. The main purpose was to assess
which production technique revealed higher efficiency. Statistical tests on the
common production function model suggested that the two cultivation methods might lie
on different frontiers. Separate analyses of two sub-samples (93 and 138 observations
for organic and conventional farms, respectively) found that conventional farms were
significantly more efficient than organic farms, with respect to their specific technology
(0.902 vs. 0.831). Analysis also estimated that efficiency plays a crucial role into the
factors affecting productivity in the organic process. Some policy implications can be drawn from these findings.