In Finland, expanding dairy farms often face the problem of additional fields being geographically distant and only available as small parcels. We develop a stochastic production frontier model to estimate the technical efficiency of Finnish dairy farms and simulate the effect of parcel distance...

The major objective of this paper is to examine the association between agricultural subsidies and farm efficiency using data from the European Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) for operations specializing on dairy. The analysis covers the 18 year period going from 1990 to 2007 and includes...

The U.S. dairy industry is undergoing rapid structural change, evolving from a structure including many small farmers in the Upper Midwest and Northeast to one that includes very large farms in new production regions. Small farms are struggling to retain competitiveness via improved management...

Despite having the second largest livestock population in Africa and favorable climate, the contribution of the livestock, especially the dairy sector to the Ethiopian economy is minimal. The per capita consumption of dairy products of 16 liters is one of the lowest in the world. With increasing...

The main objective of this paper was to evaluate the technical efficiency in 17 milk production farms in the region of Viçosa, state of Minas Gerais, during the period 1999-2002. These farms have received technical assistance from a program created by the Federal University of Viçosa and...

Dairy production in the US has experienced a marked increase in the size of dairy operations over time. Even as total production has grown over time, smaller operations have been disappearing. Consequently, the viability of smaller dairy farms has become an important policy concern in regions...

Grass-fed beef cost and returns survey data from 2012 were analyzed to measure technical efficiency of GFB farms in the U.S. We found all inputs with expected signs. The average technical efficiency of GFB was 70% and the farms are operating with increasing returns to scale.

This study determines efficiency drivers, scale and technical efficiencies, and other economic performance measures for Southeastern U.S. meat goat farms. We estimate an input distance function (IDF) using stochastic production frontier (SPF) techniques. Empirical Monte Carlo (MC) simulation...

Most analyses of technical efficiency and productivity focus on the activities of firms or institutions using inputs to produce outputs. In this paper, we report the results of an efficiency analysis that is couched in a different context. We analyse the efficiency with which physical...

The U.S. live hog production has undergone a significant structural change characterized by a trend toward larger operations. Experts argue that there is a cost advantage for larger farms due to industrialization and increased management intensity. One important element in production, mainly for...