Farm technology and technical efficiency: Evidence from four regions in China

Abstract

In this paper we fit stochastic frontier production functions to data for Chinese farms grouped into each of four regions-North, Northeast, East, and Southwest-over 1995Southwest-over -1999 These frontier production functions are shown to have statistically different structures, and the marginal product information shows overuse of chemical inputs in the East and capital services in the North. Labor also has a low marginal product. Next, we use the data and the production parameters to create technical efficiency scores for each of the farms and then standardize them.Standardized technical efficiency is shown to have the same structure across regions and to be related to the age of the farmer, land fragmentation, and the village migration rate, controlling for year dummies and village or regional fixed effects.JEL Classification: C23, D24, N55, O13

Land tenure security and technical efficiency: new insights from a case study in Northwest China

“…Land fragmentation, as measured by the number of plots, can have either negative or positive effects on TE (see, for example, Chen et al, 2009;Tan et al, 2010). On the one hand, given the total land area, farms with more plots need more labor time for travelling, may be more difficult to manage and to use machinery, and may use a larger share of the land for boundaries.…”

“…In our case, the one-step estimation of TE and its determinants allows us to assess the impact of tenure security perceptions on management capabilities while controlling for changes in land, labor and other inputs. Similar approaches have been used to examine the impacts of education, sharecropping, land fragmentation and migration on TE (Kumbhakar et al, 1991;Ahmed et al, 2002;Chen et al, 2009;Tan et al, 2010).…”

Wage Growth, Landholding, and Mechanization in Chinese Agriculture

“…Family labor tends to be more intensively used on smaller farms in the absence of efficient labor markets due to difficulty in monitoring and supervising hire labor, which, in turn contributes to the inverse relationship between farm size and crop yield (Benjamin & Brandt, 2002;Berry & Cline, 1979;Chen, Huffman, & Rozelle, 2009;Feder, 1985). Chinese agriculture, dominated by labor-intensive small farms, mainly rely on family labor (Cook, 1999).…”

Improving the Technical Efficiency of Sengcu Rice Producers through Better Financial Management and Sustainable Farming Practices in Mountainous Areas of Vietnam

“…If farmers still use both kinds of fertilizers, a nutritional imbalance occurs and the consequence is that the rate of partially filled grains increases. This advice is similar to previous studies such as Hien et al and Chen et al [10,62], but contrary to other authors [12,13,34,63]. Another suggestion to improve the soil fertility and optimize crop yield related to organic manure is that all farmers should apply about 2 to 3 times the current amount.…”