Several methods of farming techniques (eg: traditional, organic, sustainable farming, green farming etc).
I want to know what are the different methods in Economics to compare any two of the farming techniques.
This question is basically for Economic study.
Hi Anup,
You should have a broad variety of variables to consider. If your main focus is in economics, then crop yields, cost of production and net income could be your main variables. More variables could include: ecological services value (e.g.: pollination, crop diversity, water and soil quality). More variables: quality of life for the farmers and their families, environmental quality.
The ability to compare systems of agriculture such as organic versus conventional it is critical to allow those systems to be differentiated. This is best done by long term studies which give a defined reaction from the organic and converntional strategies. For this to occur long term replicated studies are needed. Check out the Rodale Institute Farming System Trial as an example. Another approach is to identify a sampling of organic and conventional farmers and then characterize their inputs outputs etc.
Organic certified agriculture has the potential to get premium prices which are a part of this equation. It takes about 3 years for a depleted conventional farm land to become competitive in yield to conventional agricultural land this is the result of the need to improve soil quality to get competitive production results with nutrient demanding crops like maize.
After the organic transition the yields will be equivalent in the systems except when droughts are experienced and the organic improved soil condition will be superior under droughtly years because of the soil improvement.
Paul Reed Hepperly Thank you sir, your insight is really helpful, I am trying to compare conventional farming and organic farming techniques, I am using primary data (sample study of three different zones of a State), studies also suggested that crop yield and climate conditions can affect the productivity and efficiency, as you have mentioned premium return over organic product should be considered major output return factor, I am considering your suggestions for my study, thank you once again!
You may be interested in exploring the efficiency literature (parametric or non parametric models). See Khumbakar for very interesting papers on this topic.
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