The Impact of Natural Disasters and Pest Infestations on Technical Efficiency in Rice Production: A Study in Vietnam

Abstract

This study examines the effects of natural disasters, such as typhoons, floods, droughts, and pest infestations, on the technical efficiency of rice production in Vietnam. Employing stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), the research estimates the technical efficiency in rice production of 2394 farmers from the 2018 Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) dataset. The findings indicate that the average technical efficiency of rice production among these farmers is 78.99%. Exposure to natural disasters and pest infestations leads farmers to reduce their investments in rice production, resulting in decreased technical efficiency, lower yields, and reduced profitability. Among the various disasters, droughts have the most significant adverse impact on technical efficiency in rice production. The results highlight the limited capacity of farmers to cope with the challenges posed by natural disasters in rice production. The study emphasizes the importance of providing timely support to farmers, fostering resilience within the context of rice farming, and enhancing agricultural sustainability in Vietnam. To address these challenges effectively, policymakers are advised to prioritize facilitating farmers’ access to agricultural insurance. Additionally, encouraging income diversification among farmers becomes crucial to ensuring provisions in the case of income loss from rice production due to natural disasters or pest infestations. Moreover, measures such as promoting climate-smart agricultural practices, improving water management infrastructure, establishing early warning systems, and emphasizing pest and disease control measures can be implemented to mitigate losses resulting from natural disasters and pest infestations.

Some Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Technical Efficiency—The Example of European Union Agriculture

“…The category of economic efficiency has so far been devoted to a large part of the scientific literature and practical research [7][8][9]16]. Because economic efficiency enables the assessment of the achievement of long-term economic goals of enterprises or projects or on a macroeconomic scale-sectors and economies-and numerous methods of measuring it proposed in the literature allow for indicating the level, we determine factors increasing efficiency and areas of inefficiency [17,18]. In general, economic efficiency can be thought of as a classic measure based on the financial indicators of the entity or project, or as an alternative measure based on cross-sectional data.…”