Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the economic performance of Norwegian crop farms using a stochastic frontier analysis. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis was based on a translog cost function and unbalanced farm-level panel data for 1991–2013 from 455 Norwegian farms...

The title relates to the title of the Inaugural Lecture of the Late Professor John L Dillon, Foundation Professor of Farm Management at UNE, in whose memory this lecture series was established. The author has been involved in the farm management discipline for more than 50 years. He reflects on...