Assessing the effects of managerial and production practices on the efficiency of commercial pig farming

Konstantinos Galanopoulos, Stamatis Aggelopoulos, Irene Kamenidou, Konstadinos Mattas

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    A non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique was applied to investigate the degree of technical and scale efficiency of commercial pig farming in Greece. Mean pure technical efficiency in a DEA model in which all variables were normalized with the number of sows was 0.83, indicating that there is ample potential for more efficient input utilisation in domestic pig farming. The normalized measurement of variables captures the fact that most scale-inefficient farms are operating under decreasing returns to scale. This implies that even smaller farms have expanded to a size larger than is optimal relative to the number of sows in their herds. In an attempt to explain variation in efficiency scores, the study focuses on certain managerial and breeding practices often not accounted for. Tobit analysis reveals that the choice of insemination method, origin of the genotype, and the feedstuff preparation system, as well as the mortality rate of piglets and the size class, have a significant impact on the efficiency level of pig farms.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)125-141
    Number of pages17
    JournalAgricultural Systems
    Volume88
    Issue number2-3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jun 2006

    Keywords

    • Best practice
    • DEA
    • Efficiency
    • Frontier production function
    • Managerial practices
    • Pig farming

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