Technical Efficiency in Organic and Conventional Wheat Farms: Evidence from a Primary Survey from Two Districts of Ganga River Basin, India

S.P. Singh, Priya Sajwan and Komal Sajwan

No 334558, 97th Annual Conference, March 27-29, 2023, Warwick University, Coventry, UK from Agricultural Economics Society - AES

Abstract: This paper analyses the technical efficiency of wheat farms operating under organic and conventional farming systems. The study is based on a primary survey of 579 farms (294 organic and 285 conventional) conducted in 2021 in two districts located in the Middle Ganga River Basin, India. Technical, managerial, and scale efficiencies of individual farms are estimated by applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The per hectare value of wheat production is taken as an output variable, and values of seeds, human labour, machine cost, plant nutrients, farm yard manure (FYM), plant protection, and irrigation charges are considered input variables for estimating the farm-level efficiencies. The post-DEA analysis is conducted using the Tobit regression to determine the efficiency factors. The results show that technical efficiency is significantly higher in conventional than organic farming systems due to a higher gap in scale efficiency than managerial efficiency. Further, 9.8% of conventional and only 1.0% of organic farms operate at the Most Productive Scale Size (MPSS), and 99% of organic and 81% of conventional farms at IRS. Organic farms perform well in managerial efficiency, but their technical efficiency is lower than conventional farms, mainly due to their relatively lower scale size. The paper suggests that technical efficiency in organic wheat farms can be increased by upscaling the farm size by incentivizing group/collective farming in clusters.

Keywords: Productivity Analysis; Farm Management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 7
Date: 2023-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-eff
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aesc23:334558

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.334558

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