TY - JOUR
T1 - Soil conservation practices and production efficiency of smallholder farms in Central China
AU - Yang, Zhihai
AU - Mugera, Amin W.
AU - Yin, Ning
AU - Wang, Yumeng
PY - 2018/8
Y1 - 2018/8
N2 - The aim of this paper is to evaluate and analyze the impact of adoption of soil conservation practices (SCPs) on the technical efficiency of smallholder rice producers in Central China. We address self-selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity problems by estimating a switching regression model for the adoption decision function and separate stochastic production frontiers for SCP and Conventional farms while allowing for production inefficiency. SCP farms exhibit statistically higher average technical efficiency than Conventional farms. Education, extension services, membership in cooperatives, access to credit, and alternative income sources are positively and significantly associated with technical efficiency for both groups. Conventional farms display higher partial output elasticity for land, while only SCP farms show significant elasticity for capital.
AB - The aim of this paper is to evaluate and analyze the impact of adoption of soil conservation practices (SCPs) on the technical efficiency of smallholder rice producers in Central China. We address self-selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity problems by estimating a switching regression model for the adoption decision function and separate stochastic production frontiers for SCP and Conventional farms while allowing for production inefficiency. SCP farms exhibit statistically higher average technical efficiency than Conventional farms. Education, extension services, membership in cooperatives, access to credit, and alternative income sources are positively and significantly associated with technical efficiency for both groups. Conventional farms display higher partial output elasticity for land, while only SCP farms show significant elasticity for capital.
KW - Central China
KW - Soil conservation practices
KW - Stochastic frontiers
KW - Switching regression
KW - Technical efficiency
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85017585217&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10668-017-9951-7
DO - 10.1007/s10668-017-9951-7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85017585217
SN - 1387-585X
VL - 20
SP - 1517
EP - 1533
JO - Environment, Development and Sustainability
JF - Environment, Development and Sustainability
IS - 4
ER -