A stochastic input distance function is estimated to analyse the efficiency with which physical characteristics of individual lot-fed beef cattle in Australia are combined with conventional inputs to produce a final product possessing defined quality attributes. High mean technical efficiency...

To assist in meeting the target outcomes for the Beef CRC, Sustainable Beef Profit Partnership (BPP) teams meet regularly to measure their current performance, set targets for future productivity increases, and use a profitability framework to assess the potential impact of improvements,...

In the Beef CRC, Sustainable Beef Profit Partnership (BPP) teams meet regularly to measure their current performance, set targets for future productivity increases, and use a profitability framework to assess the potential impact of improvements, innovations and new technologies in their beef...

Technology adoption in the Australian beef industry has been low and slow compared to that in the intensive livestock and cropping industries. Adoption needs to be higher and faster to fully capture the benefits from new beef genetic and other technologies. The principles of rapid improvement...

The performance of pulp and paper industries in four Canadian regions is compared based on the estimation of an input distance function both with and without pollutant outputs. The environmentally sensitive approach provides higher productivity growth estimates for all regions, indicating the...

Efficiency has been proven to be an important managerial tool in improving total factor productivity in agriculture. The four sources of economic inefficiency: allocative, technical, pure technical and scale inefficiency of a sample of seventy-six Nepalese rice farmers were examined using the...

A land retirement policy whereby land is taken out of agriculture and converted to natural vegetation or forestry has the potential to reduce environmental damage related to dryland salinity in Western Australia. This paper uses some recent results in the theory of directional distance functions...

Assam in the north eastern region of India has the endowments to ensure agricultural growth in the sense that the state has huge reserves of ground water in addition to the enormous surface water availability. Returns to both labor and capital in the state are considered high as potentials for...

Payment cards, which identify upper and lower bounds on individual willingness to pay, are one approach to improve efficiency over the popular dichotomous choice approach to contingent valuation. This paper reports a split sample test of the impacts on benefit estimates and efficiency arising...