Measuring and explaining technical efficiency of dairy farms: a case study of smallholder farms in East Africa

Technical efficiency in milk production in underdeveloped production environment of India*

“…On the other hand the strength of SFA lies in its ability to segregate the error term into two components, viz. inefficiency and statistical noise, but it can be implemented only by imposing a specific functional form and hence the efficiency indicators obtained can be sensitive to chosen function form (Gelan et al 2010). It has been suggested in earlier works that SFA with a composed error term is more appropriate to estimate technical efficiency in agriculture, particularly in the developing countries, where the probability of the data being influenced by measurement errors and the effects of weather conditions, disease, etc.…”

“…Literature review has revealed that farmers in developing countries fail to exploit full potential of a technology and make allocative errors (Gelan et al 2010;Otieno et al, 2012 andRao andRama 2012). Thus, increasing the efficiency in production assumes greater significance in attaining potential output at the farm level.…”

Technical Efficiency in Dairy Farms: Research Synthesis and an Application in the South of Brazil

“…Conversely, this finding is consistent with , Bravo-Ureta and Rieger (1991), Kompas and Che (2006) and Brümmer and Loy (2000), who found that the number of cows has a positive effect on TE. It is also consistent with Gelan and Muriithi (2010), who did not find that farm size (measured by acres) is statistically significant.…”

“…By studing these management practices, efficiency and performance could be improved through farmers' training and direct incentives (Jaforullah & Whiteman, 1999; Another determinant was related to farm size (included as inputs in Figure 8), measured by the number of cows Alvarez & Arias, 2004). Care with animal health (Hansson & Öhlmér, 2008;Gelan & Muriithi, 2010), feeding practices, such as fodder and feed (Chang & Mishra, 2011;Ma, et al, 2012), the use of automatic milking systems and frequency of milking (Hansson, 2007;Chang & Mishra, 2011;Chidmi, et al, 2010) were also discriminant. Dairy farms in better financial health (e.g., debt per cow, financial pressure) Barnes, 2008;Chidmi, et al, 2010;Areal, et al, 2012); with more investments per cow Chidmi, et al, 2010); and making larger use of agricultural services, such as extension, nutritionist and veterinary services (Chang & Mishra, 2011;Dong, et al, 2013) were also deemed to be better off in terms of TE.…”

Date Marketing Efficiency Estimation in Saudi Arabia: A Two-Stage Data Envelopment Analysis Approach

“…The literature review shows a widespread application of the two-stage DEA approach in different disciplines since it was first introduced by Charnes et al (1985) to gain insights into the efficiency of marketing efforts. Since then, there have been marketing studies which have used the DEA approach as a methodology in diverse applications (Kamakura et al, 1988;Mahajan, 1991;Heskett et al, 1994;Kamakura et al, 1996;Donthu and Yoo, 1998;Luo and Donthu, 2001;Kamakura et al, 2002;Donthu et al, 2005;Keh et al, 2006;Gelan and Muriithi, 2010;Minegishi, 2013;Thibbotuwawa et al, 2013;O'Donnell, 2014). At the national level, Alabdulkader et al (2015) led the first scientific attempt to assess the marketing efficiency of dates in Saudi Arabia using the two-stage DEA approach.…”