Managment Practices and Efficiency of Farms in the Western Great Plains

Résumé du livre

This dissertation is composed of four papers that have been produced as part of a research project designed to increase winter wheat productivity by suppressing cereal aphids in the Western Great Plains of the U.S. One hundred forty one farms were surveyed across six states in 2002-2005. The first paper was targeted to find the effect of crop diversity for traditional wheat dominant farms. The second paper was designed to determine if management practices such as tillage, crop diversity, wheat variety selection, and insecticide use affect wheat grain yield and net returns. Econometric methods were used to estimate wheat grain yield and net returns response to management practices. The third paper was designed to determine the relative performance of the farms as measured by technical and economic efficiency using a data envelopment analysis input oriented approach. The fourth paper was designed to compare two different methods, data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier analysis, for measuring farm efficiency using an output oriented approach. Tobit models were used to estimate the relationships between farm efficiency and farm characteristics and management practices.