Alvarez A, del Corral J, Solís D, Pérez J A
Department of Economics, University of Oviedo, Oviedo 33006, Spain.
J Dairy Sci. 2008 Sep;91(9):3693-8. doi: 10.3168/jds.2008-1123.
In recent decades, the dairy sector has shown a global tendency toward intensification. This structural change may have significant effects on farm efficiency and, consequently, on the economic results of the farms. The goal of this study was to offer an empirical analysis of the effect of intensification on dairy farming. To do this, we first classified a sample of dairy farms according to their level of intensification by using a cluster analysis. We then estimated independent stochastic cost frontiers for each group of farms to calculate their levels of efficiency. The methodology used in this study allowed for the presence of different technologies within a sample, which is a methodological issue frequently avoided in the agricultural economics literature. The empirical results showed that intensive farms were closer to their cost frontier than extensive ones, suggesting a positive relationship between intensification and efficiency.
近几十年来，乳制品行业呈现出全球范围内的集约化趋势。这种结构变化可能会对农场效率产生重大影响，进而影响农场的经济成果。本研究的目的是对集约化对奶牛养殖的影响进行实证分析。为此，我们首先通过聚类分析，根据集约化水平对奶牛场样本进行分类。然后，我们估计了每组农场的独立随机成本前沿，以计算它们的效率水平。本研究中使用的方法允许样本中存在不同的技术，这是农业经济学文献中经常回避的一个方法问题。实证结果表明，集约化农场比粗放型农场更接近其成本前沿，这表明集约化与效率之间存在正相关关系。
