Irrigation, Technical Efficiency, and Farm Size: The Case of Brazil

Abstract

In developing countries, irrigation can help to decrease poverty in rural areas through increased employment in the agricultural sector. Evidence shows that irrigation may increase farm productivity and technical efficiency. In this paper, we estimate the effect of irrigation on farm technical efficiency in Brazil using the 2006 Agricultural Census dataset on more than 4 million farms. We estimate a stochastic production frontier at farm level, considering potential selection bias in irrigation adoption. We find that farms using irrigation are on average 2.51% more technically efficient compared to rain-fed farms. Our findings also suggest that while small farms are more efficient than medium and large farms, the largest difference in technical efficiency between rain-fed and irrigated farms is among large farms. Our results indicate that policies that seek to support expansion of irrigation adoption has also the potential to achieve greater rural development given the estimated effects estimated in this paper among very small and small farms, which are more than 70% of the farms in Brazil.

Impacts of the use of biological pest control on the technical efficiency of the Brazilian agricultural sector

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“…The data for the average monthly temperature in degrees C and the accumulated monthly precipitation in millimeters for the period from December 1979 to December 2005 were used to calculate the seasonal (summer and winter) averages for precipitation and temperature. The use of climate variables in these specifications is due to the significant changes observed in the Brazilian climate between these seasons (Cunha et al 2015 ; Morais et al 2021 ).…”

Analysis of technical efficiency of irrigated onion (Allium cepa L.) production in North Gondar Zone of amhara regional state, Ethiopia

“…The model specification of the stochastic production frontier may be tested using the likelihood ratio test (LR Test) [33]. The LR Test's null hypothesis is that all interactions and second-order terms related to the translog specification are equal to zero [35].…”

Evaluation of water-user performance in smallholder irrigation schemes in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa: A stochastic meta-frontier analysis

“…The studies considered various aspects such as the water security of water-users (Sinyolo et al, 2014), the assessment of local institutional actors on scheme performance (Mwadzingeni et al, 2020), farmer satisfaction of scheme performance (Gomo et al, 2014), assessment of performance of irrigation infrastructure and governance system (Mugejo et al, 2022), and the awareness of water governance across gender and intergenerational dimensions (Dlangalala and Mudhara, 2020). Furthermore, there are few studies that assessed performance of SIS using SFA such as Makombe et al (2017), Oulmane and Benmehala (2019), and Morais et al (2021). The studies assessed farm performance across different irrigation typologies (Makombe et al, 2017), effects of irrigation technology adoption (Oulmane and Benmehala, 2019), and assessment of performance between irrigators and non-irrigators (Morais et al, 2021).…”