Cultivation Arrangements and the Cost Efficiency of Rice Farming in Taiwan

In this paper, a switching regression model is developed to analyze farmers' choice behavior and cost efficiency in field plowing arrangement in Taiwan. We find that the decision on the choice of plowing arrangement is determined by a cost comparison between self-plowing and hired-service, and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of productivity analysis Vol. 18; no. 3; pp. 223 - 239
Main Authors HUANG, MEI-YING, HUANG, CLIFF J., FU, TSU-TAN
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Norwell Kluwer Academic Publishers 01.11.2002
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Agriculture
Alternative agriculture
Cost efficiency
Cost estimates
Cost functions
Crops
Efficiency
Employment
Family farms
Farm income
Farmers
Farmworkers
Harvest
Minimization of cost
Plowing
Rice
Tillers
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Summary:In this paper, a switching regression model is developed to analyze farmers' choice behavior and cost efficiency in field plowing arrangement in Taiwan. We find that the decision on the choice of plowing arrangement is determined by a cost comparison between self-plowing and hired-service, and other non-cost considerations, such as the availability of family labor and machinery, education level, non-farm income, age, and regional effects. Across a spectrum of farmer characteristics, empirical results indicate a potentially substantial costsavings by hiring service for field plowing than by self-plowing. Self-plowing farmers also subject to a significant level of cost inefficiency.
Bibliography:SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-General Information-1
content type line 14
ISSN:0895-562X
1573-0441
DOI:10.1023/a:1020686610802