Technical efficiency of Portuguese wine farms
New Medit, Vol. 8, n. 1, (March 2009), pp. 4-9
Language: EN
Jel classification: Q120, D200
The objective of this study is to measure the levels of technical efficiency of a sample of wine-making farms, in the Portuguese Alentejo region, and relate these efficiency levels to some farm characteristics such as: physical and economic size, farmers’ age, land property, irrigation, labour use, and area and product specialization. The methodology chosen to measure the individual levels of efficiency was non-parametric due to the advantage of not defining a functional form for the production technology.
Results show that wine-producing farms could increase the efficiency of input use. The scale and congestion inefficiencies are responsible for most of the observed technical inefficiency. The technical efficiency increases with specialization.
technical efficiency, non-parametric, vineyard, wine
