Drivers of Productivity Change in the Italian Tomato Food Value Chain

Lukáš Čechura,Zdeňka Žáková Žáková Kroupová,Antonella Samoggia

doi:10.3390/agriculture11100996

Lukáš Čechura, Zdeňka Žáková Žáková Kroupová + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11100996

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Abstract

This study evaluated productivity dynamics and identified sources of productivity growth in Italian tomato production and processing. We used a stochastic frontier input distance function with four error components—heterogeneity, statistical noise, persistent and transient inefficiency—and a four-step estimation procedure with a system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator in the first step to address the endogeneity problem. The results reveal significant differences in the productivity and efficiency of tomato production and processing. Moreover, there are considerable differences among the different sizes of tomato producers, with the main variations observed for scale efficiency. While tomato processors operate at an optimal production size, tomato producers are characterized by considerable economies of scale, especially small producers. These results thus suggest that there is significant opportunity for technical efficiency improvements at both stages of the value chain. Finally, due to improvements made to scale efficiency, extensive productivity growth was observed for the group of small tomato producers.

Highlights

This study evaluated productivity dynamics and identified sources of productivity growth in Italian tomato production and processing
While tomato processors operate at an optimal production size, tomato producers are characterized by considerable economies of scale, especially small producers
This study evaluates productivity dynamics and identifies sources that induce produc4

Summary

Introduction

This study evaluated productivity dynamics and identified sources of productivity growth in Italian tomato production and processing. There are considerable differences among the different sizes of tomato producers, with the main variations observed for scale efficiency. While tomato processors operate at an optimal production size, tomato producers are characterized by considerable economies of scale, especially small producers These results suggest that there is significant opportunity for technical efficiency improvements at both stages of the value chain. Italian tomato production is highly geographically concentrated, with two major production regions: Emilia-Romagna in the north and Apulia in the south. These two regions alone produced 35% and 32%, respectively, of the country’s processing tomatoes in 2018 [4]. The processed tomato sector is important for Italy’s international trade [9] since 60% of Italian production

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