Soil conservation practices and production efficiency of smallholder farms in Central China

Zhihai Yang, Amin W. Mugera, Ning Yin, Yumeng Wang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1517–1533
Number of pages17
JournalEnvironment, Development and Sustainability
Volume20
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2018

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