Are there economies of inputs in mixed crop-livestock farming systems? A cross-frontier approach applied to French dairy-grain farms

In this study, we test the hypothesis that mixed crop-livestock farms realize economies of inputs. To do so, we use the standard cross-frontier model to evaluate overall input efficiencies and develop a slacks-based (SB) cross-frontier model to evaluate input-specific efficiencies of mixed farms rel...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied economics 2021-04, Vol.53 (20), p.2275-2291
Main Authors: Minviel, Jean Joseph, Veysset, Patrick
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Best practice
Cross-frontier DEA
cross-to-own efficiency
Economic analysis
Economic theory
Environmental Sciences
Farm size
Farms
Fertilizers
Grain
Humanities and Social Sciences
input-specific economies
Life Sciences
Livestock
mixed farming
Pesticides
Production factors
Quantitative Finance
SB cross-frontier
Socioeconomic factors
Subsidies
Technology
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Summary:In this study, we test the hypothesis that mixed crop-livestock farms realize economies of inputs. To do so, we use the standard cross-frontier model to evaluate overall input efficiencies and develop a slacks-based (SB) cross-frontier model to evaluate input-specific efficiencies of mixed farms related to the best practice production frontier of specialized farms. These models are applied to an unbalanced panel with 825 observations on 247 French farms from 1991 to 2011. Regarding the standard cross-frontier framework, we find that 72% of the mixed farms exhibit diseconomies of inputs. This suggests that the mixed production technology is largely dominated by the specialized one in terms of input savings. Under the SB cross-frontier model, we find that the mixed farms exhibit, on average, diseconomies of inputs for each of their production factors. We also find that almost a quarter of the mixed farms realizes economies of inputs on the use of labour, fertilizers, and pesticides. Finally, regression results indicate that public subsidies and farm size are negatively associated with the probability of observing input economies. This suggests that, for our sample, the concept of mixed crop-livestock farming faces structural and socio-economic realities, mainly regarding farm size and public subsidies.
ISSN:0003-6846
1466-4283
DOI:10.1080/00036846.2020.1856324