Ullah Asmat, Perret Sylvain R
School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, Bangkok, 12120, Thailand,
Environ Manage. 2014 Aug;54(2):288-300. doi: 10.1007/s00267-014-0300-4. Epub 2014 Jun 15.
Cotton cropping in Pakistan uses substantial quantities of resources and adversely affects the environment with pollutants from the inputs, particularly pesticides. A question remains regarding to what extent the reduction of such environmental impact is possible without compromising the farmers' income. This paper investigates the environmental, technical, and economic performances of selected irrigated cotton-cropping systems in Punjab to quantify the sustainability of cotton farming and reveal options for improvement. Using mostly primary data, our study quantifies the technical, cost, and environmental efficiencies of different farm sizes. A set of indicators has been computed to reflect these three domains of efficiency using the data envelopment analysis technique. The results indicate that farmers are broadly environmentally inefficient; which primarily results from poor technical inefficiency. Based on an improved input mix, the average potential environmental impact reduction for small, medium, and large farms is 9, 13, and 11 %, respectively, without compromising the economic return. Moreover, the differences in technical, cost, and environmental efficiencies between small and medium and small and large farm sizes were statistically significant. The second-stage regression analysis identifies that the entire farm size significantly affects the efficiencies, whereas exposure to extension and training has positive effects, and the sowing methods significantly affect the technical and environmental efficiencies. Paradoxically, the formal education level is determined to affect the efficiencies negatively. This paper discusses policy interventions that can improve the technical efficiency to ultimately increase the environmental efficiency and reduce the farmers' operating costs.
巴基斯坦的棉花种植消耗大量资源，且 inputs（此处疑为“投入品”）中的污染物，尤其是农药，对环境产生不利影响。关于在不影响农民收入的情况下，能在多大程度上减少这种环境影响，仍然是个问题。本文调查了旁遮普省选定的灌溉棉花种植系统的环境、技术和经济表现，以量化棉花种植的可持续性并揭示改进方案。我们的研究主要使用原始数据，量化了不同农场规模的技术、成本和环境效率。利用数据包络分析技术计算了一组指标，以反映这三个效率领域。结果表明，农民在环境方面普遍效率低下；这主要是由于技术效率低下所致。基于改进的投入组合，在不影响经济回报的情况下，小、中、大型农场的平均潜在环境影响分别降低9%、13%和11%。此外，小型与中型以及小型与大型农场规模之间在技术、成本和环境效率上的差异具有统计学意义。第二阶段回归分析表明，整个农场规模对效率有显著影响，而接受推广和培训有积极影响，播种方法对技术和环境效率有显著影响。矛盾的是，正规教育水平被确定对效率有负面影响。本文讨论了可以提高技术效率以最终提高环境效率并降低农民运营成本的政策干预措施。
