Economic efficiency of small farmers in a changing world: A survey of recent evidence

The growing literature on economic efficiency of farmers in Third World agriculture is reviewed with emphasis on conceptual and methodological issues, and empirical results of studies aimed at measuring technical efficiency. While substantial methodological progress has been made in measuring inefficiency, important conceptual problems remain. Results from regions undergoing rapid technological change suggest substantial technical inefficiencies, of the order of 30 per cent, as well as allocative inefficiencies on the use of purchased inputs. Most studies are able to relate levels of inefficiency to farmers' information and skills, and input supply problems. The results suggest that further improvements in productivity in Green Revolution areas will need to give more emphasis to exploiting the technical efficiency ‘gap’ through adaptive research, extension, farmer education, and improved input supply.

[1]  Mubarik Ali,et al.  Profit Efficiency Among Basmati Rice Producers in Pakistan Punjab , 1989 .

[2]  Gershon Feder,et al.  Does Agricultural Extension Pay? The Training and Visit System in Northwest India , 1987 .

[3]  J. M. Phillips.  A Comment on Farmer Education and Farm Efficiency: A Survey , 1987, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[4]  Erwin C. Chou.  Farmer ability and farm productivity : a study of farm households in the Chiang Mai valley, Thailand 1972-1978 , 1987 .

[5]  D. Cotlear.  Farmer education and farm efficiency in Peru : the role of schooling, extension services and migration , 1986 .

[6]  Cliff C. J. Huang,et al.  Two Views of Efficiency in Indian Agriculture , 1986 .

[7]  Shawna Grosskopf,et al.  The Role of the Reference Technology in Measuring Productive Efficiency , 1986 .

[8]  J. Scott Shonkwiler,et al.  Alternative stochastic specifications of the frontier production function in the analysis of agricultural credit programs and technical efficiency , 1986 .

[9]  Malcolm McPherson.  Why do researchers continue to ignore risk in tests of farmer efficiency? A comment on Shapiro's rejection of the efficient but poor hypothesis , 1986 .

[10]  John Adams.  Peasant rationality: Individuals, groups, cultures , 1986 .

[11]  Robert A. Young,et al.  Estimates of the Economic Value Productivity of Irrigation Water in Pakistan from Farm Surveys , 1985 .

[12]  P. Pingali,et al.  Human Capital, Adjustments in Subjective Probabilities, and the Demand for Pest Controls , 1985 .

[13]  Cliff C. J. Huang,et al.  Technical Efficiency on Individual Farms in Northwest India , 1984 .

[14]  J. Quiggin,et al.  The Use Of Cross-Sectional Estimates Of Profit Functions For Tests Of Relative Efficiency: A Critical Review , 1984 .

[15]  N. Stern,et al.  Palanpur, the economy of an Indian village , 1983 .

[16]  S. Pudasaini.  The Effects of Education in Agriculture: Evidence from Nepal , 1983 .

[17]  T. Young,et al.  FRONTIER PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS AND THE MEASUREMENT OF TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY , 1983 .

[18]  J. Lingard,et al.  COMPARATIVE EFFICIENCY OF RICE FARMS IN CENTRAL LUZON, THE PHILIPPINES , 1983 .

[19]  C. Lovell,et al.  On the estimation of technical inefficiency in the stochastic frontier production function model , 1982 .

[20]  D. Jamison.  Farmer Education and Farm Efficiency , 1982 .

[21]  S. S. Sidhu,et al.  Estimating Farm-Level Input Demand and Wheat Supply in the Indian Punjab Using a Translog Profit Function , 1981 .

[22]  S. R. Makary,et al.  AN INDEX OF MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY FOR EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURE: A CASE STUDY OF LARGE FARMS , 1981 .

[23]  R. Herdt,et al.  Modern Technology and Economic Efficiency of Philippine Rice Farmers , 1981, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[24]  P. Junankar.  Do Indian farmers maximise profits , 1980 .

[25]  K. Nair.  In defense of the irrational peasant: Indian agriculture after the Green Revolution , 1980 .

[26]  Roger S. Frantz,et al.  On the Existence of X-Efficiency , 1980 .

[27]  C. Lovell,et al.  A survey of frontier production functions and of their relationship to efficiency measurement , 1980 .

[28]  D. Jamison,et al.  Farmer Education and Farm Efficiency: A Survey , 1979, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[29]  R. Young,et al.  Farm Resource Productivities, Allocative Efficiencies and Development Policy in the Indus Basin, Pakistan , 1979 .

[30]  M. Upton.  THE UNPRODUCTIVE PRODUCTION FUNCTION , 1979 .

[31]  H. Barnum,et al.  Technology and relative economic efficiency , 1978 .

[32]  G. Battese,et al.  ESTIMATION OF A PRODUCTION FRONTIER MODEL: WITH APPLICATION TO THE PASTORAL ZONE OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA , 1977 .

[33]  W. Huffman.  Allocative Efficiency: The Role of Human Capital , 1977 .

[34]  Jürgen Müller,et al.  Sources of Technical Efficiency: The Roles of Modernization and Information , 1977, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[35]  A. Salam.  Resource Productivity in the Punjab's Agriculture , 1976 .

[36]  P. Schmidt.  On the Statistical Estimation of Parametric Frontier Production Functions , 1976 .

[37]  Jock R. Anderson.  One more or less cheer for optimality , 1975 .

[38]  Jürgen Müller,et al.  On Sources of Measured Technical Efficiency: The Impact of Information , 1974 .

[39]  J. Doll.  On Exact Multicollinearity and the Estimation of the Cobb-Douglas Production Function , 1974 .

[40]  S. Afriat.  Efficiency Estimation of Production Function , 1972 .

[41]  C. Timmer.  Using a Probabilistic Frontier Production Function to Measure Technical Efficiency , 1971, Journal of Political Economy.

[42]  J. Dillon,et al.  Allocative Efficiency, Traditional Agriculture, and Risk , 1971 .

[43]  Finis Welch,et al.  Education in Production , 1970, Journal of Political Economy.

[44]  G. S. Sahota.  Efficiency of Resource Allocation in Indian Agriculture , 1968 .

[45]  V. Chennareddy.  Production Efficiency in South Indian Agriculture , 1967 .

[46]  W. Hopper,et al.  Allocation Efficiency in a Traditional Indian Agriculture , 1965 .

[47]  M. Farrell.  The Measurement of Productive Efficiency , 1957 .

[48]  P. Heisey.  Accelerating the transfer of wheat breeding gains to farmers : a study of the dynamics of varietal replacement in Pakistan , 1990 .

[49]  .. CentroInternacionaldeMejoramientodeMaízyTrigo.  1987-88 CIMMYT World Wheat Facts and Trends The Wheat Revolution Revisited : Recent Trends and Future Challenges , 1989 .

[50]  I. Singh,et al.  Small Farmers in South Asia: Their Characteristics, Productivity, and Efficiency , 1988 .

[51]  D. Byerlee.  Maintaining the Momentum in Post-Green Revolution Agriculture: A Micro-Level Perspective from Asia , 1987 .

[52]  S. Jayasuriya,et al.  MEASUREMENT OF FIRM-SPECIFIC TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY: A COMPARISON OF METHODS , 1987 .

[53]  J. Flinn,et al.  Technical efficiency in basmati rice production , 1986 .

[54]  J. M. Phillips,et al.  Farmer education and efficiency: a frontier production function approach , 1986 .

[55]  Kaliappa Kalirajan,et al.  Types of education and agricultural productivity: A quantitative analysis of Tamil Nadu rice farming , 1985 .

[56]  D. Norman,et al.  Efficiency differentials in the traditional agriculture of Northern Nigeria , 1984 .

[57]  D. Jamison,et al.  Farmer education and farm efficiency in Nepal: The role of schooling , 1984 .

[58]  M. S. Butt.  Education And Farm Productivity In Pakistan , 1984 .

[59]  J. Antle.  Human capital, infrastructure, and the productivity of Indian rice farmers , 1984 .

[60]  P. Junankar.  Tests of the profit‐maximisation hypothesis: A study of Indian agriculture , 1980 .

[61]  L. Lau,et al.  Front Matter & Resource Use in Agriculture: Applications of the Profit Function to Selected Countries , 1979 .

[62]  R. Bernsten.  Constraints to Higher Rice Yields in the Philippines , 1977 .

[63]  K. H. Shapiro.  Efficiency differentials in peasant agriculture and their implications for development policies , 1977 .

[64]  G. Stigler.  The Xistence of X-Efficiency , 1976 .

[65]  Theodore W. Schultz,et al.  The Value of the Ability to Deal with Disequilibria , 1975 .

[66]  L. Lau,et al.  A Test for Relative Economic Efficiency: Some Further Results , 1973 .

[67]  L. Lau,et al.  Labor intensity and relative efficiency in Indian agriculture. , 1970 .