Efficiency analysis of Finnish crop farms by Stochastic Nonparametric Envelopment of Data (StoNED)

Kirjoittajat

• Timo Kuosmanen Economic Research Unit, MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Luutnantintie 13, 00410 Helsinki
• Natalia Kuosmanen Economic Research Unit, MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Luutnantintie 13, 00410 Helsinki

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33354/smst.75770

Avainsanat:

environmental performance, frontier estimation, productive efficiency analysis

Abstrakti

A new two-stage approach to modeling the nutrient emissions of crop farms is developed. In the first stage, we estimate the classic production function using farm-level data. We apply the stochastic nonparametric envelopment of data (StoNED) method that combines the axiomatic, nonparametric modeling of the production technology with a stochastic, probabilistic treatment of inefficiency and noise. Given the estimated input saving and output expansion potential for each farm in the sample, we estimate the impacts of the decreased fertilizer use and the increased crop yield on the nutrient balance of farms. This provides an aggregate level estimate on how much nutrient emissions could be abated through improving the operational efficiency of farms without any new technical innovations or down-scaling of the activity.