IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/ijameu/175077.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of scale, intensity and farm structure on the income efficiency of Irish beef farms

Author

Listed:
  • Finneran, E.
  • Crosson, p.

Abstract

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was employed to develop a model of income and scale efficiency for Irish beef farms. The objective was to identify and quantify management, farm structural and intensity indicators of efficiency for over 400 representative farms over two production systems and two years. Bootstrapping techniques were employed to measure and correct efficiency scores for sampling bias. Less than 10% of the sample exhibited constant or increasing returns to scale. The remaining farms exhibited decreasing returns to scale meaning that they were larger than optimal scale. Greater income efficiency was associated with lower levels of concentrate feeding and lower overhead costs per livestock unit (LU). Fragmentation, paid labour and capital investment were significantly negatively associated with income efficiency. There was a positive relationship between market gross output per LU and income efficiency. Negative market net margins tended to be subsidised by greater off-farm income on smaller (more scale efficient) farms and by greater direct payments on larger (more scale inefficient) farms. Consequently, prospects for increasing beef output via scale expansion are negative in an external environment of declining subsidies and reduced off-farm employment in rural areas. Increased output from Irish beef farms must therefore come primarily from farm system structural changes rather than scale changes, otherwise farm income efficiency will decline.

Suggested Citation

  • Finneran, E. & Crosson, p., 2013. "Effects of scale, intensity and farm structure on the income efficiency of Irish beef farms," International Journal of Agricultural Management, Institute of Agricultural Management, vol. 2(4), pages 1-12, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ijameu:175077
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.175077
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/175077/files/226_Finneran.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.175077?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Léopold Simar & Paul W. Wilson, 1998. "Sensitivity Analysis of Efficiency Scores: How to Bootstrap in Nonparametric Frontier Models," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(1), pages 49-61, January.
    2. Shadbolt, Nicola M., 2012. "Competitive strategy analysis of New Zealand pastoral dairy farming systems," International Journal of Agricultural Management, Institute of Agricultural Management, vol. 1(3), pages 1-9.
    3. Jean-Paul Chavas & Ragan Petrie & Michael Roth, 2005. "Farm Household Production Efficiency: Evidence from The Gambia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(1), pages 160-179.
    4. Helfand, Steven M. & Levine, Edward S., 2004. "Farm size and the determinants of productive efficiency in the Brazilian Center-West," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 31(2-3), pages 241-249, December.
    5. Howley, Peter & Breen, James P. & Donoghue, Cathal O. & Hennessy, Thia, 2012. "Does the single farm payment affect farmers’ behaviour? A macro and micro analysis," International Journal of Agricultural Management, Institute of Agricultural Management, vol. 2(1), pages 1-8, October.
    6. Fried, Harold O. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Shelton S. (ed.), 2008. "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency and Productivity Growth," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195183528.
    7. Tauer, Loren W., 1993. "Short-Run and Long-Run Efficiencies of New York Dairy Farms," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 1-9, April.
    8. del Corral, J. & Pérez, J.A. & Roibás, D., 2010. "The impact of land fragmentation on milk production," Efficiency Series Papers 2010/02, University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG).
    9. R. D. Banker & A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1984. "Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1078-1092, September.
    10. Rakipova, Anna N. & Gillespie, Jeffrey M. & Franke, Donald E., 2003. "Determinants of Technical Efficiency in Louisiana Beef Cattle Production," Journal of the ASFMRA, American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, vol. 2003, pages 1-9.
    11. Carol Newman & Alan Matthews, 2007. "Evaluating the Productivity Performance of Agricultural Enterprises in Ireland using a Multiple Output Distance Function Approach," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 128-151, February.
    12. Seamus J. Sheehy & R. H. McAlexander, 1965. "Selection of Representative Benchmark Farms for Supply Estimation," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 47(3), pages 681-695.
    13. Deblitz, Claus, 2010. "agri benchmark: Benchmarking Beef Farming Systems Worldwide," 2010 Conference (54th), February 10-12, 2010, Adelaide, Australia 59096, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    14. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    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. Maria Martinez Cillero & Fiona Thorne & Michael Wallace & James Breen & Thia Hennessy, 2018. "The Effects of Direct Payments on Technical Efficiency of Irish Beef Farms: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(3), pages 669-687, September.
    2. Hooks Teresa & Macken-Walsh Áine & McCarthy Olive & Power Carol & Henchion Maeve, 2018. "Co-Operation among Irish Beef Farmers: Current Perspectives and Future Prospects in the Context of New Producer Organisation (PO) Legislation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-19, November.
    3. Tsakiridis, Andreas & Breen, James & O'Donoghue, Cathal & Hanrahan, Kevin & Wallace, Michael & Crosson, Paul, 2016. "Flexibility of beef suckler cow systems under varying calf retention strategies," 90th Annual Conference, April 4-6, 2016, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 236289, Agricultural Economics Society.
    4. Andreas Tsakiridis & Michael Wallace & James Breen & Cathal O'Donoghue & Kevin Hanrahan, 2021. "Beef quality assurance schemes: Can they improve farm economic performance?," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(3), pages 451-471, July.

    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. Kristof De Witte & Rui Marques, 2010. "Designing performance incentives, an international benchmark study in the water sector," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 18(2), pages 189-220, June.
    2. Léopold Simar & Paul W. Wilson, 2015. "Statistical Approaches for Non-parametric Frontier Models: A Guided Tour," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 83(1), pages 77-110, April.
    3. Nitin Arora & Ishfaq Ali Ganaie, 2023. "How Much Technically Efficient Is The South Asian Region? An Intra-Regional Comparison Among Its Affiliates," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 24(1), pages 20-40, March.
    4. Kostas Kounetas & Fotis Papathanassopoulos, 2013. "How efficient are Greek hospitals? A case study using a double bootstrap DEA approach," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(6), pages 979-994, December.
    5. Isabel Narbón-Perpiñá & Maria Balaguer-Coll & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2019. "Evaluating local government performance in times of crisis," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 64-100, January.
    6. Calogero Guccio & Giacomo Pignataro & Ilde Rizzo, 2014. "Evaluating the efficiency of public procurement contracts for cultural heritage conservation works in Italy," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 38(1), pages 43-70, February.
    7. Emrouznejad, Ali & De Witte, Kristof, 2010. "COOPER-framework: A unified process for non-parametric projects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(3), pages 1573-1586, December.
    8. Halkos, George & Tzeremes, Nickolaos, 2011. "Examining the influence of access to improved water and sanitation sources on countries’ economic efficiency," MPRA Paper 30099, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Calogero Guccio & Marco Ferdinando Martorana & Luisa Monaco, 2016. "Evaluating the impact of the Bologna Process on the efficiency convergence of Italian universities: a non-parametric frontier approach," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 275-298, June.
    10. Tiziana Cuccia & Calogero Guccio & Ilde Rizzo, 2013. "Does Unesco inscription affect the performance of tourism destinations? A regional perspective," ACEI Working Paper Series AWP-04-2013, Association for Cultural Economics International, revised Oct 2013.
    11. Simões, Pedro & Carvalho, Pedro & Marques, Rui Cunha, 2012. "Performance assessment of refuse collection services using robust efficiency measures," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 56-66.
    12. Massimo Finocchiaro Castro & Calogero Guccio, 2018. "Measuring Potential Efficiency Gains from Mergers of Italian First Instance Courts through Nonparametric Model," Public Finance Review, , vol. 46(1), pages 83-116, January.
    13. Hampf, Benjamin & Rødseth, Kenneth Løvold, 2019. "Environmental efficiency measurement with heterogeneous input quality: A nonparametric analysis of U.S. power plants," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 610-625.
    14. Massimo Finocchiaro Castro & Calogero Guccio & Ilde Rizzo, 2014. "An assessment of the waste effects of corruption on infrastructure provision," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(4), pages 813-843, August.
    15. Finn Førsund & Dag Edvardsen & Sverre Kittelsen, 2015. "Productivity of tax offices in Norway," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 269-279, June.
    16. Manuel Salas-Velasco, 2020. "Measuring and explaining the production efficiency of Spanish universities using a non-parametric approach and a bootstrapped-truncated regression," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 825-846, February.
    17. Pedro Simões & Rui Marques, 2011. "Performance and congestion analysis of the portuguese hospital services," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 19(1), pages 39-63, March.
    18. Thilakaweera, Bolanda Hewa & Harvie, Charles & Arjomandi, Amir, 2016. "Branch expansion and banking efficiency in Sri Lanka’s post‐conflict era," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 45-57.
    19. Cuccia, Tiziana & Guccio, Calogero & Rizzo, Ilde, 2016. "The effects of UNESCO World Heritage List inscription on tourism destinations performance in Italian regions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 494-508.
    20. Hampf, Benjamin, 2018. "Cost and environmental efficiency of U.S. electricity generation: Accounting for heterogeneous inputs and transportation costs," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 932-941.

    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:ags:ijameu:175077. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifmaaea.html .

    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.