Technical efficiency of traditional and non-traditional crop production: a case study from Haiti.

摘要

Limited resource farms in Haiti encounter difficulties maintaining sustainable yields for alternative crops as their dependency on external sources of inputs escalates. This paper employs a stochastic production frontier function to examine the factors socioeconomic and demographic that influence technical efficiency of a traditional crop (bean) and a non-traditional crop (potato) in Haiti. Data from 243 limited resource farmers were used in the empirical analysis. Results indicate that technical efficiency for bean and potato was related to credit access and education level. Though potato was technically more efficient and generated higher net returns per hectare, bean production required less external inputs and less foreign exchange for input purchase. Policies designed to improve technical efficiency of non-traditional crops should consider costs to limited resource farmers and the drain of foreign currency to resource poor economies.