In this paper recent developments in the estimation of frontier functions and the measurement of efficiency are surveyed, and the potential applicability of these methods in agricultural economics is discussed. Frontier production, cost and profit functions are discussed, along with the construction of technical, allocative, scale and overall efficiency measures relative to these estimated frontiers. The two primary methods of frontier estimation, econometric and linear programming, are compared. A survey of recent applications of frontier methods in agriculture is also provided. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Recent Developments in Frontier Modelling and Efficiency Measurement

Mapping high resolution (30-m or better) cropland extent over very large areas such as continents or large countries or regions accurately, precisely, repeatedly, and rapidly is of great importance for addressing the global food and water security challenges. Such cropland extent products capture individual farm fields, small or large, and are crucial for developing accurate higher-level cropland products such as cropping intensities, crop types, crop watering methods (irrigated or rainfed), crop productivity, and crop water productivity. It also brings many challenges that include handling massively large data volumes, computing power, and collecting resource intensive reference training and validation data over complex geographic and political boundaries. Thereby, this study developed a precise and accurate Landsat 30-m derived cropland extent product for two very important, distinct, diverse, and large countries: Australia and China. The study used of eight bands (blue, green, red, NIR, SWIR1, SWIR2, TIR1, and NDVI) of Landsat-8 every 16-day Operational Land Imager (OLI) data for the years 2013–2015. The classification was performed by using a pixel-based supervised random forest (RF) machine learning algorithm (MLA) executed on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud computing platform. Each band was time-composited over 4–6 time-periods over a year using median value for various agro-ecological zones (AEZs) of Australia and China. This resulted in a 32–48-layer mega-file data-cube (MFDC) for each of the AEZs. Reference training and validation data were gathered from: (a) field visits, (b) sub-meter to 5-m very high spatial resolution imagery (VHRI) data, and (c) ancillary sources such as from the National agriculture bureaus. Croplands versus non-croplands knowledge base for training the RF algorithm were derived from MFDC using 958 reference-training samples for Australia and 2130 reference-training samples for China. The resulting 30-m cropland extent product was assessed for accuracies using independent validation samples: 900 for Australia and 1972 for China. The 30-m cropland extent product of Australia showed an overall accuracy of 97.6% with a producer’s accuracy of 98.8% (errors of omissions = 1.2%), and user’s accuracy of 79% (errors of commissions = 21%) for the cropland class. For China, overall accuracies were 94% with a producer’s accuracy of 80% (errors of omissions = 20%), and user’s accuracy of 84.2% (errors of commissions = 15.8%) for cropland class. Total cropland areas of Australia were estimated as 35.1 million hectares and 165.2 million hectares for China. These estimates were higher by 8.6% for Australia and 3.9% for China when compared with the traditionally derived national statistics. The cropland extent product further demonstrated the ability to estimate sub-national cropland areas accurately by providing an R2 value of 0.85 when compared with province-wise cropland areas of China. The study provides a paradigm-shift on how cropland maps are produced using multi-date remote sensing. These products can be browsed at www.croplands.org and made available for download at NASA’s Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) https://www.lpdaac.usgs.gov/node/1282.

A 30-m landsat-derived cropland extent product of Australia and China using random forest machine learning algorithm on Google Earth Engine cloud computing platform

Distribution of cost and profit efficiency: Evidence from Indian banking

It contains the statement of R&D works undertaken, achievement made and the expenditure by the laboratory during the financial year 2013-2014.

Annual Report 2013-2014

http://oar.icrisat.org/7223/7/Haris_etal_Rainfed_post-print_2013.pdf

Is rainfed agriculture really a pathway from poverty

Organic farming systems have attracted increasing attention over the last one decade because they are perceived to offer some solutions to the problems currently besetting the agricultural sector. Organic farming has the potential to provide benefits in terms of environmental protection, conservation of non-renewable resources and improved food quality. India is bestowed with lot of potential to produce all varieties of organic products due to its diverse agro-climatic regions. In several parts of the country, the inherited tradition of organic farming is an added advantage. This holds promise for the organic producers to tap the market which is growing steadily in the domestic market related to the export market. In India, the land under certification is around 2.8 million ha. But, there is considerable latent interest among farmers in conversion to organic farming. However, some farmers are reluctant to convert because of the perceived high costs and risks involved in organic farming. Despite the attention which has been paid to organic farming over the last few years, very little accessible information actually exists on the costs and returns of organic farming in India. The empirical evidences of efficiency analysis of organic and conventional farming systems are scarce or even absent. So, the present paper focuses mainly on the issues like economics and efficiency of organic farming visa-vis conventional farming in India. Four states namely Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab and U.P were purposively selected for the present study. Similarly, four major crops i.e., cotton, sugarcane, paddy and wheat were chosen for comparison. A model based nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used for analyzing the efficiency of the farming systems. The crop economics results showed a mixed response. Overall, it is concluded that the unit cost of production is lower in organic farming in case of cotton and sugarcane crops where as the same is lower in conventional farming for paddy and wheat crops. The DEA efficiency analysis conducted on different crops indicated that the efficiency levels are lower in organic farming when compared to conventional farming, relative to their production frontiers. The results conclude that there is ample scope for increasing the efficiency under organic farms.

/pdf/economics-and-efficiency-of-organic-farming-vis-a-vis-v4v30ae5nl.pdf

Economics and Efficiency of Organic Farming vis-à-vis Conventional Farming in India

One of the major objectives of Indian banking sector reforms was to encourage operational self-sufficiency, flexibility and competition in the system and to increase the banking standards in India to the international best practices. The second phase of reforms began in 1997 with aim to reorganisation measures, human capital development, technological up-gradation, structural development which helped them for achieving universal benchmarks in terms of prudential norms and pre-eminent practices. This paper seeks to determine the impact of various market and regulatory initiatives on efficiency improvements of Indian banks. Efficiency of firm is measured in terms of its relative performance that is, efficiency of a firm relative to the efficiencies of firms in a sample. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has used to identify banks that are on the output frontier given the various inputs at their disposal. The present study is confined only to the constant-returns-to-scale (CRS) assumption of decision making units (DMUs). Variable-returns-to-scale (VRS) assumption for estimating the efficiency was not attempted. It was found from the results that national banks, new private banks and foreign banks have showed high efficiency over a period time than remaining banks.

/pdf/efficiency-of-indian-banking-industry-in-the-post-reform-era-4g4q9q7bie.pdf

Efficiency of Indian banking industry in the post-reform era

Cropland fallows are the next best-bet for intensification and extensification, leading to increased food production and adding to the nutritional basket. The agronomical suitability of these lands can decide the extent of usage of these lands. Myanmar’s agricultural land (over 13.8 Mha) has the potential to expand by another 50% into additional fallow areas. These areas may be used to grow short-duration pulses, which are economically important and nutritionally rich, and constitute the diets of millions of people as well as provide an important source of livestock feed throughout Asia. Intensifying rice fallows will not only improve the productivity of the land but also increase the income of the smallholder farmers. The enhanced cultivation of pulses will help improve nutritional security in Myanmar and also help conserve natural resources and reduce environmental degradation. The objectives of this study was to use remote sensing methods to identify croplands in Myanmar and cropland fallow areas in two important agro-ecological regions, delta and coastal region and the dry zone. The study used moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250-m, 16-day normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) maximum value composite (MVC), and land surface water index (LSWI) for one 1 year (1 June 2012–31 May 2013) along with seasonal field-plot level information and spectral matching techniques to derive croplands versus cropland fallows for each of the three seasons: the monsoon period between June and October; winter period between November and February; and summer period between March and May. The study showed that Myanmar had total net cropland area (TNCA) of 13.8 Mha. Cropland fallows during the monsoon season account for a meagre 2.4% of TNCA. However, in the winter season, 56.5% of TNCA (or 7.8 Mha) were classified as cropland fallows and during the summer season, 82.7% of TNCA (11.4 Mha) were cropland fallows. The producer’s accuracy of the cropland fallow class varied between 92 and 98% (errors of omission of 2 to 8%) and user’s accuracy varied between 82 and 92% (errors of commission of 8 to 18%) for winter and summer, respectively. Overall, the study estimated 19.2 Mha cropland fallows from the two major seasons (winter and summer). Out of this, 10.08 Mha has sufficient moisture (either from rainfall or stored soil water content) to grow short-season pulse crops. This potential with an estimated income of US$ 300 per hectare, if exploited sustainably, is estimated to bring an additional net income of about US$ 1.5 billion to Myanmar per year if at least half (5.04 Mha) of the total cropland fallows (10.08 Mha) is covered with short season pulses.

/pdf/mapping-cropland-fallow-areas-in-myanmar-to-scale-up-30h8vpn1w4.pdf

Mapping cropland fallow areas in myanmar to scale up sustainable intensification of pulse crops in the farming system

The Village Level Studies of ICRISAT are designed to collect farm level data to assist research in its task
of generating new technologies suited to the needs and means of farmers living in the semi-arid tropics.
They serve as a vehicle to study the changes in agriculture and village economies. This publication is a
comprehensive study of 240 households from six villages, Aurepalle and Dokur in Andhra Pradesh and
Kalman, Kanzara, Kinkheda and Shirapur villages in Maharashtra undertaken from 1975 to 1984 and later
resumed in 2001-02 with a more representative sample of 446 households. It documents the changes that
occurred in agriculture and household economies in these villages over a 26-year period between 1975-78
and 2001-04. The studies while giving a clear picture of farming systems in the rural areas, help in
identifying the socioeconomic and institutional constraints faced by the farming community.
The studies reveal the slow disappearance of joint families (dominant in 1975-78) and the emergence of
nuclear families. They delve deep into the trends pertaining to average family size, literacy levels, household
income, consumption standards, dependence on farming as a major occupation, reduced dependence on
crop and livestock enterprises for sustenance, nonfarm sources of income, real wages of labor, etc. The
studies reveal that households had less land to operate in 2001-04 than in 1975-78 and that cropping
patterns have undergone drastic changes with cash crops overtaking food crops in all the VLS villages.
Despite moderate increases in productivity, crop and livestock production have become non-remunerative
due to steadily increasing production costs and stagnant product prices.
The publication finally addresses the policy implications of drastically changed cropping patterns and
nonviability of crop and livestock enterprises among other issues, and suggests measures to improve the
state of rainfed agriculture in the semi-arid tropics.

/pdf/changes-in-agriculture-and-village-economies-195bscyy84.pdf

Changes in Agriculture and Village Economies

This study presents the success story of the adoption and diffusion of improved chickpea short duration varieties in southern India. The experience in the state of Andhra Pradesh particularly exempliﬁes evidences that adoption of technologies signiﬁcantly enhanced agricultural productivity and total welfare gains in both traditional and non-traditional chickpea growing regions. As part of a global initiative to assess the impacts of legumes research in the CGIAR, this study supported by the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) contributes to generating more reliable information on key aspects of adoption and diffusion as well as gaining better insights and deeper understanding of the impacts of varietal change...

D. Kumara Charyulu

Papers

Economics and Efficiency of Organic Farming vis-à-vis Conventional Farming in India

Efficiency of Indian banking industry in the post-reform era

Mapping cropland fallow areas in myanmar to scale up sustainable intensification of pulse crops in the farming system

Changes in Agriculture and Village Economies

Short-Duration Chickpea Technology: Enabling Legumes Revolution in Andhra Pradesh, India, Research Report No. 23