IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/annopr/v169y2009i1p167-18110.1007-s10479-008-0390-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Efficiency and sustainability assessment for a group of farmers in the Brazilian Amazon

Author

Listed:
  • Eliane Gomes
  • João Soares de Mello
  • Geraldo Souza
  • Lidia Angulo Meza
  • João Mangabeira

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to use DEA models to evaluate sustainability in agriculture. Several variables are taken into account and the resulting efficiency is measured by comparison. The performance of family farms is analysed here (variables: farmed area, work force, and production). As agricultural sustainability depends on the maintenance of systems of production for long periods of time, the models were run for the years of 1986 and 2002. Tiered DEA models were used to group farmers in sustainability categories. Non-parametric regression models were used to identify the factors affecting the efficiency measurements. All the results indicate that the majority of the farmers increased their efficiency along the time. These improvements may support the existence of sustainability. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009

Suggested Citation

  • Eliane Gomes & João Soares de Mello & Geraldo Souza & Lidia Angulo Meza & João Mangabeira, 2009. "Efficiency and sustainability assessment for a group of farmers in the Brazilian Amazon," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 167-181, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:169:y:2009:i:1:p:167-181:10.1007/s10479-008-0390-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s10479-008-0390-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10479-008-0390-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10479-008-0390-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Otsuki, Tsunehiro & Hardie, Ian W. & Reis, Eustáquio J., 2002. "The implication of property rights for joint agriculture–timber productivity in the Brazilian Amazon," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 299-323, May.
    2. Kirjavainen, Tanja & Loikkanent, Heikki A., 1998. "Efficiency differences of finnish senior secondary schools: An application of DEA and Tobit analysis," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 377-394, October.
    3. Mubarik Ali, 1996. "Quantifying the socio‐economic determinants of sustainable crop production: an application to wheat cultivation in the Tarai of Nepal," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 14(1), pages 45-60, April.
    4. S Y Sohn, 2006. "Random effects logistic regression model for ranking efficiency in data envelopment analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 57(11), pages 1289-1299, November.
    5. Valentina Bosetti & Gianni Locatelli, 2006. "A data envelopment analysis approach to the assessment of natural parks' economic efficiency and sustainability. The case of Italian national parks," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(4), pages 277-286.
    6. Rajiv D. Banker & Ram Natarajan, 2008. "Evaluating Contextual Variables Affecting Productivity Using Data Envelopment Analysis," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(1), pages 48-58, February.
    7. Afonso, Antonio & St. Aubyn, Miguel, 2006. "Cross-country efficiency of secondary education provision: A semi-parametric analysis with non-discretionary inputs," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 476-491, May.
    8. Pannell, David J. & Glenn, Nicole A., 2000. "A framework for the economic evaluation and selection of sustainability indicators in agriculture," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 135-149, April.
    9. Sauer, Johannes & Abdallah, Jumanne M., 2007. "Forest diversity, tobacco production and resource management in Tanzania," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(5), pages 421-439, January.
    10. Fare, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna, 1992. "Malmquist Productivity Indexes and Fisher Ideal Indexes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(410), pages 158-160, January.
    11. Barbara Casu & Philip Molyneux, 2003. "A comparative study of efficiency in European banking," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(17), pages 1865-1876.
    12. Avkiran, Necmi Kemal, 1999. "The evidence on efficiency gains: The role of mergers and the benefits to the public," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(7), pages 991-1013, July.
    13. R. D. Banker & A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1984. "Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1078-1092, September.
    14. Fernandez Castilla, Rogelio E. & Sawyer, Diana Oya, 1993. "Malaria rates and fate: A socioeconomic study of malaria in Brazil," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1137-1145, November.
    15. Herendeen, Robert A. & Wildermuth, Todd, 2002. "Resource-based sustainability indicators: Chase County, Kansas, as example," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 243-257, August.
    16. Hoff, Ayoe, 2007. "Second stage DEA: Comparison of approaches for modelling the DEA score," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 181(1), pages 425-435, August.
    17. Robert R. Schneider & Eugenio Arima & Adalberto Verissimo & Carlos, Jr. Souza & Paulo Barreto, 2002. "Sustainable Amazon : Limitations and Opportunities for Rural Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14089, December.
    18. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    19. Leonardo Ramos Rios & Antonio Carlos Gastaud Maçada, 2006. "Analysing the Relative Efficiency of Container Terminals of Mercosur using DEA," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 8(4), pages 331-346, December.
    20. E G Gomes & M P E Lins, 2008. "Modelling undesirable outputs with zero sum gains data envelopment analysis models," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(5), pages 616-623, May.
    21. Dan Rosen & Claire Schaffnit & Joseph Paradi, 1998. "Marginal Rates and Two-dimensional Level Curves in DEA," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 205-232, March.
    22. Lins, Marcos P. Estellita & Gomes, Eliane G. & Soares de Mello, Joao Carlos C. B. & Soares de Mello, Adelino Jose R., 2003. "Olympic ranking based on a zero sum gains DEA model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 312-322, July.
    23. Rasul, Golam & Thapa, Gopal B., 2004. "Sustainability of ecological and conventional agricultural systems in Bangladesh: an assessment based on environmental, economic and social perspectives," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 327-351, March.
    24. Ali, Mubarik, 1996. "Quantifying the socio-economic determinants of sustainable crop production: an application to wheat cultivation in the Tarai of Nepal," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 45-60, April.
    25. Marie-Laure Bougnol & José Dulá, 2006. "Validating DEA as a ranking tool: An application of DEA to assess performance in higher education," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 339-365, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Geraldo Souza & Eliane Gonçalves Gomes & Eliseu Roberto Alves, 2022. "Two-part fractional regression model with conditional FDH responses: an application to Brazilian agriculture," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 314(2), pages 393-409, July.
    2. Mutyasira, Vine & Hoag, Dana & Pendell, Dustin & Manning, Dale T. & Berhe, Melaku, 2018. "Assessing the relative sustainability of smallholder farming systems in Ethiopian highlands," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 83-91.
    3. Agnes Gold & Stefan Gold, 2019. "Drivers of Farm Efficiency and Their Potential for Development in a Changing Agricultural Setting in Kerala, India," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(4), pages 855-880, September.
    4. Huifeng Pan & Yingqi Liu & Hongwei Gao, 2015. "Impact of agricultural industrial structure adjustment on energy conservation and income growth in Western China: a statistical study," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 228(1), pages 23-33, May.
    5. Mwambo, Francis Molua & Fürst, Christine & Nyarko, Benjamin K. & Borgemeister, Christian & Martius, Christopher, 2020. "Maize production and environmental costs: Resource evaluation and strategic land use planning for food security in northern Ghana by means of coupled emergy and data envelopment analysis," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    6. Asima Ihsan & Bilal Mehmood, 2016. "Relative Efficiencies of Public Parks in Three Cities of Punjab," International Journal of Economics and Empirical Research (IJEER), The Economics and Social Development Organization (TESDO), vol. 4(1), pages 9-24, January.
    7. Anna Gaviglio & Rosalia Filippini & Fabio Albino Madau & Maria Elena Marescotti & Eugenio Demartini, 2021. "Technical efficiency and productivity of farms: a periurban case study analysis," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, December.
    8. Sushil Gupta & Hossein Rikhtehgar Berenji & Manish Shukla & Nagesh N. Murthy, 2023. "Opportunities in farming research from an operations management perspective," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(6), pages 1577-1596, June.
    9. Maria G. Lampridi & Claus G. Sørensen & Dionysis Bochtis, 2019. "Agricultural Sustainability: A Review of Concepts and Methods," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-27, September.
    10. Mosbah, Ezzeddine & Zaibet, Lokman & Dharmapala, P. Sunil, 2020. "A new methodology to measure efficiencies of inputs (outputs) of decision making units in Data Envelopment Analysis with application to agriculture," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    11. Gerdessen, Johanna C. & Pascucci, Stefano, 2013. "Data Envelopment Analysis of sustainability indicators of European agricultural systems at regional level," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 78-90.
    12. Pokorny, Benno & Robiglio, Valentina & Reyes, Martin & Vargas, Ricardo & Patiño Carrera, Cesar Francesco, 2021. "The potential of agroforestry concessions to stabilize Amazonian forest frontiers: a case study on the economic and environmental robustness of informally settled small-scale cocoa farmers in Peru," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    13. N. Avkiran, 2010. "Sensitivity analysis of network DEA illustrated in branch banking," CEPA Working Papers Series WP122010, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Agnes Gold & Stefan Gold, 2019. "Drivers of Farm Efficiency and Their Potential for Development in a Changing Agricultural Setting in Kerala, India," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(4), pages 855-880, September.
    2. E. Gutiérrez & S. Lozano & B. Adenso-Díaz & P. González-Torre, 2015. "Efficiency assessment of container operations of shipping agents in Spanish ports," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(6), pages 591-607, August.
    3. Davutyan, Nurhan & Demir, Mert & Polat, Sezgin, 2010. "Assessing the efficiency of Turkish secondary education: Heterogeneity, centralization, and scale diseconomies," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 35-44, March.
    4. Johann Burgstaller, 2020. "Retail‐bank efficiency: Nonstandard goals and environmental determinants," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 91(2), pages 269-301, June.
    5. Daniel Santín & Gabriela Sicilia, 2015. "Measuring the efficiency of public schools in Uruguay: main drivers and policy implications," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 24(1), pages 1-28, December.
    6. Cuccia, Tiziana & Guccio, Calogero & Rizzo, Ilde, 2016. "The effects of UNESCO World Heritage List inscription on tourism destinations performance in Italian regions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 494-508.
    7. Ester Gutiérrez & Sebastián Lozano, 2022. "Cross-country comparison of the efficiency of the European forest sector and second stage DEA approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 314(2), pages 471-496, July.
    8. Sun, J. & Wen, W. & Wang, M. & Zhou, P., 2022. "Optimizing the provincial target allocation scheme of renewable portfolio standards in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C).
    9. Amar Oukil & Slim Zekri, 2021. "Investigating farming efficiency through a two stage analytical approach: Application to the agricultural sector in Northern Oman," Papers 2104.10943, arXiv.org.
    10. ChuangLin Fang & XingLiang Guan & ShaSha Lu & Min Zhou & Yu Deng, 2013. "Input–Output Efficiency of Urban Agglomerations in China: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(13), pages 2766-2790, October.
    11. Fadzlan Sufian & Muzafar Shah Habibullah, 2010. "Bank-specific, Industry-specific and Macroeconomic Determinants of Bank Efficiency," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 4(4), pages 427-461, November.
    12. Yang, Min & Li, Yong Jun & Liang, Liang, 2015. "A generalized equilibrium efficient frontier data envelopment analysis approach for evaluating DMUs with fixed-sum outputs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 209-217.
    13. Antunes, Jorge Junio Moreira & Neves, Juliana Campos & Elmor, Larissa Rosa Carneiro & Araujo, Michel Fontaine Reis De & Wanke, Peter Fernandes & Tan, Yong, 2023. "A new perspective on the U.S. energy efficiency: The political context," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 186(PA).
    14. Li, Feng & Zhang, Danlu & Zhang, Jinyu & Kou, Gang, 2022. "Measuring the energy production and utilization efficiency of Chinese thermal power industry with the fixed-sum carbon emission constraint," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 252(C).
    15. Veronese da Silva, Aline & Costa, Marcelo Azevedo & Lopes-Ahn, Ana Lúcia, 2022. "Accounting multiple environmental variables in DEA energy transmission benchmarking modelling: The 2019 Brazilian case," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    16. Ricardo F. Díaz & Blanca Sanchez-Robles, 2020. "Non-Parametric Analysis of Efficiency: An Application to the Pharmaceutical Industry," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-27, September.
    17. Bougnol, M.-L. & Dulá, J.H. & Estellita Lins, M.P. & Moreira da Silva, A.C., 2010. "Enhancing standard performance practices with DEA," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 38(1-2), pages 33-45, February.
    18. Salas-Velasco, Manuel, 2018. "Production efficiency measurement and its determinants across OECD countries: The role of business sophistication and innovation," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 60-73.
    19. Alexandre de Cássio Rodrigues & Carlos Alberto Gonçalves & Tiago Silveira Gontijo, 2019. "A two-stage DEA model to evaluate the efficiency of countries at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(2), pages 1538-1545.
    20. Aparicio, Juan & Ortiz, Lidia & Santín, Daniel, 2021. "Comparing group performance over time through the Luenberger productivity indicator: An application to school ownership in European countries," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 294(2), pages 651-672.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:169:y:2009:i:1:p:167-181:10.1007/s10479-008-0390-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.