Agriculture's environmental externalities: DEA evidence for French agriculture

Abstract

The existence of persistent technical inefficiency offers the opportunity for a 'free lunch' not typically implied by the neoclassical theory of the firm. When external effects are related to the use of particular inputs, reduction of persistent technically inefficient levels of input use represents a means of reducing external impacts. An important example is found in agriculture where substantial environmental impacts are generated by particular inputs. Within this context, this paper considers the usefulness of data envelopment analysis (DEA) for estimation of potential input reductions and assessment of potential reductions of environmental impacts of agricultural inputs. An application for French cereal production provides estimates that indicate that substantial potential exists for reduction of input use and environmental impacts.

Measuring agricultural sustainability in terms of efficiency: the case of Dutch sugar beet growers

“…4 Piot-Lepetit et al (1997) argue that in crop farming quasi-®xed inputs should be taken into account in measuring technical ef®ciency because pesticides could be substituted by manual and mechanical pest control, for example. On Dutch arable farms, machinery and labour are generally not exploited to full capacity.…”

“…Calculation of the technical ef®ciency elucidates the possibilities of improving the environment by reducing these environmentally damaging inputs (Piot-Lepetit et al, 1997). Even more interesting is the extent to which the associated environmental impacts can be reduced by more ef®cient use.…”

Using Input‐Output Analysis to Measure the Environmental Pressure of Consumption at Different Spatial Levels

“…Most studies concern one environmental pressure type, most often nitrogen (Ball et al 1994;Piot-Lepetit et al 1997;Piot-Lepetit and Vermersch 1998;Reinhard et al 1999), energy-related emissions such as CO 2 , sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), and nitrogen oxides (NO X ) (Färe et al 1996;Golany et al 1994;Taskin and Zaim 2001;Tyteca 1997;Zofio and Prieto 2001), or waste (Courcelle et al 1998;Sarkis 1999;Sarkis and Weinrach 2001). Other studies, however, apply DEA analysis across several pressure (emission) types; see the work of Bevilacqua and Braglia (2002), Hailu and Veeman (2001), Jung and colleagues (2001), Lovell and colleagues (1995), Reinhard and colleagues ( 2000), and Sarkis and Cordeiro (2001).…”

Technical performance of milk producers in the state of Goiás , Brazil, in the short and long terms

“…The efficiency relates, therefore, to the conditions of operation of the system, i.e., the best use of the inputs to optimize the output, given the technology available (Ferreira et al, 2009). Thus, productive efficiency will depend on the internal factors of the company, such as administrative skills, information access and competitiveness, since in a capitalist competitive environment, prices, legislation, among other factors, are considered data (Piot-Lepetit et al, 1997;Ferreira et al, 2009).…”