IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idc/wpaper/idec05-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Communal Land Ownership and Agricultural Development: Overcoming Technical Efficiency Constraints Among Fiji’s Indigenous Sugercane Growers

Author

Listed:
  • Tanira T. Kingi
  • Tom F. Kompas

Abstract

Communal land ownership is frequently considered a constraint on farm productivity as farmers endeavour to balance socio-cultural obligations with the demands of commercial agriculture. Recently, the Fiji Government has encouraged indigenous Fijians to take up profitable sugarcane growing using traditional practices of ‘communal farming’. Using Stochastic Frontier Analysis, this study finds that under certain conditions, farm productivity and technical efficiency increased for farmers in these co-operative farming groups. It also finds that there were improvements among inexperienced farmers who resided in villages, previously the group at the highest risk of performing poorly. The realisation of these outcomes lies in the influence of a firm structure that allows the expression of cultural and traditional practices, rather than their suppression, while also consenting to the accumulation of economic wealth within a culturally acceptable framework.

Suggested Citation

  • Tanira T. Kingi & Tom F. Kompas, 2005. "Communal Land Ownership and Agricultural Development: Overcoming Technical Efficiency Constraints Among Fiji’s Indigenous Sugercane Growers," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec05-11, International and Development Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:idc:wpaper:idec05-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://crawford.anu.edu.au/degrees/idec/working_papers/IDEC05-11.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lal, Padma & Lim-Applegate, Hazel & Reddy, Mahendra, 2001. "Alta Or Nlta: What'S In The Name? Land Tenure Dilemma And The Fiji Sugar Industry," Working Papers 12765, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Land Tenure Center.
    2. Tom Kompas & Tuong Nhu Che, 2006. "Technology choice and efficiency on Australian dairy farms," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 50(1), pages 65-83, March.
    3. Sarah Gavian & Simeon Ehui, 1999. "Measuring the production efficiency of alternative land tenure contracts in a mixed crop‐livestock system in Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 20(1), pages 37-49, January.
    4. George E. Battese & Sohail J. Malik & Manzoor A. Gill, 1996. "An Investigation Of Technical Inefficiencies Of Production Of Wheat Farmers In Four Districts Of Pakistan," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1‐4), pages 37-49, January.
    5. Erik Mathijs & Liesbet Vranken, 2001. "Human Capital, Gender and Organisation in Transition Agriculture: Measuring and Explaining the Technical Efficiency of Bulgarian and Hungarian Farms," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 171-187.
    6. Meeusen, Wim & van den Broeck, Julien, 1977. "Efficiency Estimation from Cobb-Douglas Production Functions with Composed Error," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 18(2), pages 435-444, June.
    7. D. L. Neff & P. Garcia & C. H. Nelson, 1993. "Technical Efficiency: A Comparison Of Production Frontier Methods," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 479-489, September.
    8. Kalirajan, K P & Obwona, M B, 1994. "Frontier Production Function: The Stochastic Coefficients Approach," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 56(1), pages 87-96, February.
    9. Forsund, Finn R. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1980. "A survey of frontier production functions and of their relationship to efficiency measurement," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 5-25, May.
    10. Stevenson, Rodney E., 1980. "Likelihood functions for generalized stochastic frontier estimation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 57-66, May.
    11. Battese, George E. & Coelli, Tim J., 1988. "Prediction of firm-level technical efficiencies with a generalized frontier production function and panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 387-399, July.
    12. George E. Battese & Greg S. Corra, 1977. "Estimation Of A Production Frontier Model: With Application To The Pastoral Zone Of Eastern Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 21(3), pages 169-179, December.
    13. Nabil Amara & Namatié Traoré & Réjean Landry & Robert Remain, 1999. "Technical Efficiency and Farmers' Attitudes toward Technological Innovation: The Case of the Potato Farmers in Quebec," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 47(1), pages 31-43, March.
    14. Kodde, David A & Palm, Franz C, 1986. "Wald Criteria for Jointly Testing Equality and Inequality Restriction s," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1243-1248, September.
    15. Sherlund, Shane M. & Barrett, Christopher B. & Adesina, Akinwumi A., 2002. "Smallholder technical efficiency controlling for environmental production conditions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 85-101, October.
    16. Battese, George E. & Corra, Greg S., 1977. "Estimation Of A Production Frontier Model: With Application To The Pastoral Zone Of Eastern Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 21(3), pages 1-11, December.
    17. Wilson, Paul & Hadley, David & Asby, Carol, 2001. "The influence of management characteristics on the technical efficiency of wheat farmers in eastern England," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 329-338, March.
    18. Martine AUDIBERT, 1996. "Technical inefficiency effects among paddy farmers at the 'Office du Niger', Mali, West Africa," Working Papers 199613, CERDI.
    19. Gavian, Sarah & Ehui, Simeon, 1999. "Measuring the production efficiency of alternative land tenure contracts in a mixed crop-livestock system in Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 37-49, January.
    20. Battese, G. E. & Tessema, G. A., 1993. "Estimation of stochastic frontier production functions with time-varying parameters and technical efficiencies using panel data from Indian villages," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 313-333, December.
    21. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-332.
    22. G.E. Battese & G.A. Tessema, 1993. "Estimation of stochastic frontier production functions with time‐varying parameters and technical efficiencies using panel data from Indian villages," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 9(4), pages 313-333, December.
    23. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Tim J. Coelli, 1995. "Recent Developments In Frontier Modelling And Efficiency Measurement," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 39(3), pages 219-245, December.
    2. Asefa, Shumet, 2011. "Analysis of technical efficiency of crop producing smallholder farmers in Tigray,Ethiopia," MPRA Paper 40461, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 19 Sep 2012.
    3. Tom Kompas & Tuong Nhu Che & Hoa Thi Minh Nguyen & Ha Quang Nguyen, 2012. "Productivity, Net Returns, and Efficiency: Land and Market Reform in Vietnamese Rice Production," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 88(3), pages 478-495.
    4. Tom Kompas & Tuong Nhu Che & R. Quentin Grafton, 2004. "Technical efficiency effects of input controls: evidence from Australia's banana prawn fishery," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(15), pages 1631-1641.
    5. Edward Ebo ONUMAH & Bernhard BRÜMMER & Gabriele HÖRSTGEN-SCHWARK, 2010. "Productivity of the hired and family labour and determinants of technical inefficiency in Ghana's fish farms," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 56(2), pages 79-88.
    6. Tom Kompas, 2004. "Market reform, productivity and efficiency in Vietnamese rice production," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec04-4, International and Development Economics.
    7. Tom Kompas & Tuong Nhu Che, 2004. "Production and Technical Efficiency on Australian Dairy Farms," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec04-1, International and Development Economics.
    8. Althaler, Karl S. & Slavova, Tatjana, 2000. "DEA Problems under Geometrical or Probability Uncertainties of Sample Data," Economics Series 89, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    9. Martín Rossi, 2015. "The Econometrics Approach to the Measurement of Efficiency: A Survey," Working Papers 117, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Feb 2015.
    10. Tom Kompas, 2001. "Catch, Efficiency and Management: A Stochastic Production Frontier Analysis of the Australian Northern Prawn Fishery," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec01-8, International and Development Economics.
    11. Boris Bravo-Ureta & Daniel Solís & Víctor Moreira López & José Maripani & Abdourahmane Thiam & Teodoro Rivas, 2007. "Technical efficiency in farming: a meta-regression analysis," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 57-72, February.
    12. Chirwa Ephraim W., 2007. "Sources of Technical Efficiency among Smallholder Maize Farmers in Southern Malawi," Working Papers 172, African Economic Research Consortium, Research Department.
    13. Rouf, Abdur, 2015. "Conventional vs Natural Flood Control and Drainage Managements in a Tidal Coastal Zone: An Evaluation from a Productive Efficiency Perspective," 89th Annual Conference, April 13-15, 2015, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 256023, Agricultural Economics Society.
    14. Roy, Manish & Mazumder, Ritwik, 2016. "Technical Efficiency of Fish Catch in Traditional Fishing: A Study in Southern Assam," Journal of Regional Development and Planning, Rajarshi Majumder, vol. 5(1), pages 55-68.
    15. Srinivasulu Rajendran, 2014. "Technical Efficiency of Fruit and Vegetable Producers in Tamil Nadu, India: A Stochastic Frontier Approach," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), vol. 11(1), pages 77-93, June.
    16. Tzouvelekas, Vangelis & Pantzios, Christos J. & Fotopoulos, Christos, 2001. "Technical efficiency of alternative farming systems: the case of Greek organic and conventional olive-growing farms," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 549-569, December.
    17. Dairo Estrada & Poldy Osorio, 2004. "Effects of Financial Capital on Colombian Banking Efficiency," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, vol. 22(47), pages 162-201, December.
    18. Alejandro Esteller-Moré, 2005. "Is There a Connection Between the Tax Administration and the Political Power?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(5), pages 639-663, September.
    19. Amer Ait Sidhoum & K Hervé Dakpo & Laure Latruffe, 2022. "Trade-offs between economic, environmental and social sustainability on farms using a latent class frontier efficiency model: Evidence for Spanish crop farms," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-17, January.
    20. Manlagnit, Maria Chelo V., 2015. "Basel regulations and banks’ efficiency: The case of the Philippines," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 72-85.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q16 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - R&D; Agricultural Technology; Biofuels; Agricultural Extension Services
    • Q0 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:idc:wpaper:idec05-11. 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: Tom Kompas (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/asanuau.html .

    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.