IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aare10/59083.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Identifying efficiency trends for Queensland broad-acre beef enterprises

Author

Listed:
  • Gregg, Daniel
  • Rolfe, John

Abstract

Productivity and efficiency improvements in agriculture have recently been targeted as Federal Government priorities in Australia. This research examined a dataset of 116 broad-acre beef enterprises from Queensland who participated in a program, Profit Probe, developed to improve management and profitability of enterprises. The aim of this research was to identify the sources, if any, of productivity growth for this sample of enterprises. Two potential sources of productivity growth were identified: 1. Technological progress involving a contraction (expansion) of the cost (output) frontier, and; 2. Efficiency improvements involving a convergence of the average production function toward the frontier. Given these two potential sources of productivity growth, the Stochastic Frontier Analysis approach was ideally suited to discern and measure technological change and efficiency change. Changes over time were observable due to the unbalanced panel nature of the data with 116 enterprises observed over a range of years from 1999 to 2008. A Cobb-Douglas functional form for the cost function was estimated following testing of the Translog form which showed higher order terms were not significant. An input oriented minimum cost frontier was chosen over the output oriented production frontier approach due to the consideration that output decisions were largely exogenous whilst input decisions were endogenous. Deterministic predictors of inefficiency were included using the panel inefficiency effects frontier of Battese and Coelli. There was no evidence of technological progress in the ten years from 1999 to 2008 for this sample of enterprises. There was however evidence of efficiency improvements despite preexisting high efficiency levels. In particular there was evidence that the Profit Probe program significantly contributed to efficiency improvements for participating firms with improvements continuing with repeated participation in the program. Additionally cost efficiency was shown to be an important component of profit maximisation but most likely was not a sufficient condition with output prices, as a quality and market indicator, being highly significantly related to profit levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregg, Daniel & Rolfe, John, 2010. "Identifying efficiency trends for Queensland broad-acre beef enterprises," 2010 Conference (54th), February 10-12, 2010, Adelaide, Australia 59083, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aare10:59083
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.59083
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/59083/files/Gregg_%20Rolfe.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.59083?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. Asafu-Adjaye, J. & Mahadevan, R., 2003. "How cost efficient are Australia's mining industries?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 315-329, July.
    2. George Battese & Sumiter Broca, 1997. "Functional Forms of Stochastic Frontier Production Functions and Models for Technical Inefficiency Effects: A Comparative Study for Wheat Farmers in Pakistan," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 395-414, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Andriakopoulos, Konstantinos & Ladas, Augoustinos & Andriakopoulos, Panagiotis, 2020. "Bank efficiency and leasing in U.S.A. banking system," MPRA Paper 112645, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Tauer, Loren W. & Mishra, Ashok K., 2005. "U.S. Dairy Farm Cost Efficiency," Working Papers 127079, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    3. Islam, Asif & Hyland, Marie, 2019. "The drivers and impacts of water infrastructure reliability – a global analysis of manufacturing firms," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 143-157.
    4. Edward Ebo ONUMAH & Bernhard BRÜMMER & Gabriele HÖRSTGEN-SCHWARK, 2010. "Productivity of the hired and family labour and determinants of technical inefficiency in Ghana's fish farms," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 56(2), pages 79-88.
    5. Goyal, S.K. & Suhag, K.S. & Pandey, U.K., 2006. "An Estimation of Technical Efficiency of Paddy Farmers in Haryana State of India," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 61(01), pages 1-15.
    6. Kharin, Sergei, 2021. "Asymmetry in Price Transmission: Evidence from the Wheat-Flour Supply Chain in Russia," AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Economics and Management, vol. 13(3), September.
    7. Puig-Junoy, Jaume & Argiles, Josep M., 2004. "The influence of management accounting use on farm inefficiency," Agricultural Economics Review, Greek Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 5(2), pages 1-20, August.
    8. Chaovanapoonphol, Yaovarate & Battese, George E. & Chang, Hui-Shung (Christie), 2005. "The Impact of Rural Financial Services on the Technical Efficiency of Rice Farmers in the Upper North of Thailand," 2005 Conference (49th), February 9-11, 2005, Coff's Harbour, Australia 137811, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    9. Crompton, Paul & Lesourd, Jean-Baptiste, 2008. "Economies of scale in global iron-making," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 74-82, June.
    10. Abdul Wadud, 2013. "Impact of Microcredit on Agricultural Farm Performance and Food Security in Bangladesh," Working Papers 14, Institute of Microfinance (InM).
    11. Germeshausen, Robert & Panke, Timo & Wetzel, Heike, 2014. "Investigating the Influence of Firm Characteristics on the Ability to Exercise Market Power - A Stochastic Frontier Analysis Approach with an Application to the Iron Ore Market," EWI Working Papers 2014-17, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    12. Hong, Yu & Heerink, Nico & Zhao, Minjuan & van der Werf, Wopke, 2019. "Intercropping contributes to a higher technical efficiency in smallholder farming: Evidence from a case study in Gaotai County, China," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 317-324.
    13. Anup Kumar Bhandari & Pradip Maiti, 2007. "Efficiency of Indian Manufacturing Firms: Textile Industry as a Case Study," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 6(1), pages 71-88, April.
    14. Jeremy Smith, 2004. "Productivity Trends in the Coal Mining Industry in Canada," CSLS Research Reports 2004-07, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    15. Beibei Yan & Tianjun Liu, 2022. "Can E-Commerce Adoption Improve Agricultural Productivity? Evidence from Apple Growers in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, December.
    16. Ngwenya, S.A. & Battese, George E. & Fleming, Euan M., 1997. "The Relationship Between Farm Size and Technical Inefficiency of Production of Wheat Farmers in the Eastern Free State, Province of South Africa," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 36(3), pages 1-20, September.
    17. Uuld, Amar & Magda, Robert & Bilan, Yuriy, 2021. "An Analysis of Technical Efficiency of Vegetables’ Household Production in Mongolia," AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Economics and Management, vol. 13(3), September.
    18. Munir Ahmad & Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry & Mohammad Iqbal, 2002. "Wheat Productivity, Efficiency, and Sustainability: A Stochastic Production Frontier Analysis," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 41(4), pages 643-663.
    19. Sahoo, Auro Kumar & Sahu, Naresh Chandra & Sahoo, Dukhabandhu, 2018. "Impact of policy reforms on the productivity growth of Indian coal mining: A decomposition analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 460-467.
    20. Fuwa, Nobuhiko & Edmonds, Christopher M. & Banik, Pabitra, 2005. "How Inefficient Really Are the Small-Scale Rice Farmers in Eastern India?: Examining the Effects of Microtopography on the Estimation of Technical Efficiency," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19435, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Farm Management;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ags:aare10:59083. 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/aaresea.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.