Technical efficiency and complementarity of agroecological innovations in French West Indies banana production

• Published in: Applied economics letters Vol. 30; no. 18; pp. 2652 - 2656
• Main Authors: Minviel, Jean-Joseph, Fares, M'Hand, Blazy, Jean-Marc, Thomas, Alban
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Routledge 24.10.2023; Taylor & Francis LLC; Taylor & Francis
• Subjects: Agricultural extension; agroecological innovations; Banana plantations; Complementarity; Conditional efficiency; Economic analysis; farm performance; Farms; Human capital; Humanities and Social Sciences; Innovations; Public policy; Risk reduction; farm performance; agroecological innovations; Conditional efficiency; complementarity
• ISSN: 1350-4851; 1466-4291
• DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2022.2103074

In context of global challenges facing agriculture, our article addresses the extent to which the synergistic nature of agroecological innovations may reconcile environmental and technical efficiency of farms. We develop an empirical model, namely conditional efficiency framework, which explicitly accounts for context-dependent drivers like synergy and complementarity of innovations. Using a sample of 567 banana farms in the French West Indies, our estimates confirm the complementarity effect since the joint adoption of agroecological innovations increases the technical efficiency scores much more than other drivers and each of the innovations taken in isolation. We also show that advice and extension services as well as human capital variables are key adoption levers for public policy since they reduce the variability of production and thus the risk associated with the joint adoption of the agroecological innovations.