Technical Efficiency of U.S. Organic Farmers: The Complementary Roles of Soil Management Techniques and Farm Experience

Agricultural policymakers place increasing emphasis on developing efficiency measures for organic producers in order to evaluate regulatory strategies and evolving organic market conditions. We develop technical efficiency measures for U.S. organic farmers using a stochastic production frontier. Farm decisions about acquiring and managing organic soil materials from on-farm and local sources are incorporated into the technical efficiency measure. Productivity differences between newer entrants to organic farming and more experienced producers are estimated in order to isolate the impact of learning and management expertise on farm-level technical efficiency.