Implications of Adoption of Zero Tillage (ZT) on Productive Efficiency and Production Risk of Wheat Production

Tamer El-Shater,Amin Mugera,Yigezu Yigezu

doi:10.3390/su12093640

Abstract

The impacts of zero tillage (ZT) on soil physical, biological, and chemical properties have been fairly documented in the literature. However, there is still an information gap in the developing world in general and in integrated crop–livestock production systems in dry areas of the world in particular. Using a sample of 621 farmers in Syria, this study assessed the implications of adoption of ZT technology on productive efficiency, input-specific resource use efficiency, and production risk. A stochastic production frontier model, which explicitly and simultaneously accounts for technical inefficiency and production risk, was used to estimate total factor and input-specific technical efficiencies and the risk of obtaining lower levels of yields for each of the sampled farms. Model results show that adoption of ZT proved to be an effective risk management strategy in this dryland production system, where it led to 95% and 33.3% reductions in the risk of obtaining wheat yield levels below 1000 kg/ha and 1500 kg/ha, respectively. Overall, the results have a clear indication that using ZT leads to improvements in productive efficiency as the adoption of ZT led to 93% reduction in the risk of obtaining efficiency levels below 40%. Future research will be needed to shed light on whether coupling ZT with the other components of conservation agriculture will reverse some of these effects.

Highlights

Increasing productivity has been identified as one of the main ways of improving farm income and the economic well-being of farmers [1]
There have been no studies that measured the effect of zero tillage (ZT) technology on total factor and input-specific technical efficiency and production risk in field crops in the region
Where yi is a scalar output of production unit i, xi is a vector of N inputs used by producer i, f (xi, β) is the deterministic part of the production frontier, β is a vector of technology parameters to be estimated, and vi and ui are noise and inefficiency components, which can take a number of forms, depending on specific assumptions

Summary

Introduction

Increasing productivity has been identified as one of the main ways of improving farm income and the economic well-being of farmers [1]. This motivated many government and non-government organizations to incorporate resource use efficiency considerations in their policy formulation processes and even in the promotion of productivity enhancing initiatives and programs. There have been no studies that measured the effect of ZT technology on total factor and input-specific technical efficiency and production risk in field crops in the region. Measuring efficiency and production risk provides a way of quantifying and comparing the performance of each farmer, as well as of identifying factors that explain any sort of inefficiencies and differences in performance. Conservation Agriculture and ZT—Brief Synthesis of the Literature and Syrian Experience

Synthesis of the Literature

Methodology

Results

Conclusions and Recommendations