Chapter 4 - Investigating the regional efficiency disparities in arable crops production at the global level

Abstract

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations recognizes that a basic condition for achieving global agricultural sustainability is the improvement of the efficiency of resources utilization toward the production of agricultural products. Therefore, when sustainability is evaluated either from an academic point of view or within the context of scientific support provision to international policies such as Conference of Paris 21 and Common Agricultural Policy, it should also incorporate efficiency assessments. Although critical, the issue of efficiency is not well covered in international agricultural literature, as studies on efficiency with a global focus are scarce and only examine the aggregate outputs of agriculture, thus leaving the efficiency of countries in many specific types of crops rather understudied. The present chapter seeks to fill this gap and employs the Data Envelopment Analysis to evaluate the efficiency of national agricultural sectors on arable crops production in an international context. Furthermore, by acknowledging that certain political, physical, economic, and technological factors affect farmers' efficiency, a second-stage regression analysis is implemented in order to test the relationship between the external environment and the performance of the agricultural sector. The analysis reveals the sources of arable crops farming inefficiency and therefore leads to some important policy recommendations for facilitating a more sustainable global agricultural sector.