IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v66y2008i2-3p468-477.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The high price of sweetness: The twin challenges of efficiency and soil erosion in Fiji's sugar industry

Author

Listed:
  • Mahadevan, Renuka

Abstract

The European Union's sugar subsidy since 1975 has kept attempts to reform Fiji's sugar industry at bay, until recently due to the expiry of the subsidy at the end of 2007. This paper looks at the high price at which Fiji's sugar has remained sweet, in particular, with regards to efficient production and soil erosion. When the extent of soil erosion was included in the production function, farms on average produced at about 69% of their potential output and this finding was robust to both parametric and nonparametric approaches. In addition, soil erosion was estimated to result in a 9% loss in cane output which translates to a loss of US$8 million in farm income and US$12 million in sugar sales to the industry. Lastly, empirical evidence supports the recommendation of an integrated package of policies related to land tenure and the adoption of soil conservation practice and management.

Suggested Citation

  • Mahadevan, Renuka, 2008. "The high price of sweetness: The twin challenges of efficiency and soil erosion in Fiji's sugar industry," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 468-477, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:66:y:2008:i:2-3:p:468-477
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(07)00512-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gong, Byeong-Ho & Sickles, Robin C., 1992. "Finite sample evidence on the performance of stochastic frontiers and data envelopment analysis using panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1-2), pages 259-284.
    2. Fidele Byiringiro & Thomas Reardon, 1996. "Farm productivity in Rwanda: effects of farm size, erosion, and soil conservation investments," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 15(2), pages 127-136, November.
    3. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    4. Glenn Sheriff, 2005. "Efficient Waste? Why Farmers Over-Apply Nutrients and the Implications for Policy Design," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 27(4), pages 542-557.
    5. Brian W. Gould & William E. Saupe & Richard M. Klemme, 1989. "Conservation Tillage: The Role of Farm and Operator Characteristics and the Perception of Soil Erosion," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 65(2), pages 167-185.
    6. Christine A. Ervin & David E. Ervin, 1982. "Factors Affecting the Use of Soil Conservation Practices: Hypotheses, Evidence, and Policy Implications," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(3), pages 277-292.
    7. Bhalla, Surjit S & Roy, Prannoy L, 1988. "Mis-specification in Farm Productivity Analysis: The Role of Land Quality," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 55-73, March.
    8. Luc Valentin & Daniel J. Bernardo & Terry L. Kastens, 2004. "Testing the Empirical Relationship between Best Management Practice Adoption and Farm Profitability," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 26(4), pages 489-504.
    9. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-332.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jara-Rojas, Roberto & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E. & Moreira, Victor H. & Diaz, Jose, 2012. "Natural Resource Conservation and Technical Efficiency from Small-scale Farmers in Central Chile," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126227, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Renuka Mahadevan & John Asafu‐Adjaye, 2010. "The Implications Of European Union Sugar Price Cuts, Economic Partnership Agreement, And Development Aid For Fiji," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(1), pages 52-64, January.
    3. Laure Latruffe & Hervé Guyomard & Chantal Le Mouël, 2009. "The role of public subsidies on farms’ managerial efficiency: An application of a five-stage approach to France," Working Papers SMART 09-05, INRAE UMR SMART.
    4. Janesh Sami, 2020. "Time Series Dynamics of Sugar Export Earnings in Fiji with Multiple Endogenous Structural Breaks: Implications for EU Sugar and Industry Reforms," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 18(1), pages 169-189, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lijing Gao & J. Arbuckle, 2022. "Examining farmers’ adoption of nutrient management best management practices: a social cognitive framework," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(2), pages 535-553, June.
    2. Franco, Juan Agustin & Calatrava-Requena, Javier, 2008. "Adoption and diffusion of no tillage practices in Southern Spain olive groves," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 44014, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Paul, Satya & Shankar, Sriram, 2018. "Modelling Efficiency Effects in a True Fixed Effects Stochastic Frontier," MPRA Paper 87437, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Abdoulaye, Ibrahim Djido & Sanders, John H., 2013. "A Matching Approach to Analyze the Impact of New Agricultural Technologies: Productivity and Technical Efficiency in Niger," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150434, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Lampach, Nicolas & To-The, Nguyen & Nguyen-Anh, Tuan, 2021. "Technical efficiency and the adoption of multiple agricultural technologies in the mountainous areas of Northern Vietnam," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    6. Subal C. Kumbhakar & Christopher F. Parmeter & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2022. "Stochastic Frontier Analysis: Foundations and Advances I," Springer Books, in: Subhash C. Ray & Robert G. Chambers & Subal C. Kumbhakar (ed.), Handbook of Production Economics, chapter 8, pages 331-370, Springer.
    7. Sheng Gong & Jason.S. Bergtold & Elizabeth Yeager, 2021. "Assessing the joint adoption and complementarity between in-field conservation practices of Kansas farmers," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 9(1), pages 1-24, December.
    8. Pagiola, Stefano & Rios, Ana R. & Arcenas, Agustin, 2008. "Can the poor participate in payments for environmental services? Lessons from the Silvopastoral Project in Nicaragua," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 299-325, June.
    9. Zhihai Yang & Amin W. Mugera & Ning Yin & Yumeng Wang, 2018. "Soil conservation practices and production efficiency of smallholder farms in Central China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 1517-1533, August.
    10. Klasen, Stephan & Reimers, Malte, 2017. "Looking at Pro-Poor Growth from an Agricultural Perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 147-168.
    11. Thanh Ngo & Kan Wai Hong Tsui, 2022. "Estimating the confidence intervals for DEA efficiency scores of Asia-Pacific airlines," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 3411-3434, September.
    12. Maria & Irham & Slamet Hartono & Lestari Rahayu Waluyati, 2022. "The effect of environmental awareness on motivation in adopting farming conservation techniques in the various agro-ecological zones: a case study in critical land of Java Island, Indonesia," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 1878-1896, February.
    13. Larson,Donald F. & Muraoka,Rie & Otsuka,Keijiro, 2016. "On the central role of small farms in African rural development strategies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7710, The World Bank.
    14. Bekelc Shiferaw & Stein T. Holden, 1998. "Resource degradation and adoption of land conservation technologies in the Ethiopian Highlands: A case study in Andit Tid, North Shewa," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 18(3), pages 233-247, May.
    15. Christopher F. Parmeter & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2019. "Combining the Virtues of Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analysis," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 1628-1658, November.
    16. Peter R. Hartley and Kenneth B. Medlock III, 2013. "Changes in the Operational Efficiency of National Oil Companies," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    17. von Braun, Joachim & Mirzabaev, Alisher, 2015. "Small Farms: Changing Structures and Roles in Economic Development," Discussion Papers 210464, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    18. Tzemi, Domna & Breen, James P., 2016. "Examining Irish farmers’ awareness of climate change and the factors affecting the adoption of an advisory tool for the reduction of GHG emissions," 90th Annual Conference, April 4-6, 2016, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 236331, Agricultural Economics Society.
    19. Boris Bravo & Horacio Cocchi & Daniel Solís, 2006. "Adoption of Soil Conservation Technologies in El Salvador: A cross-Section and Over-Time Analysis," OVE Working Papers 1806, Inter-American Development Bank, Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE).
    20. Pierani, Pierpaolo & Rizzi, Pier Luigi, 2003. "Technology and efficiency in a panel of Italian dairy farms: an SGM restricted cost function approach," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 195-209, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:66:y:2008:i:2-3:p:468-477. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.