A Management and Environmental Performance Evaluation of China’s Family Farms Using an Ultimate Comprehensive Cross-Efficiency Model (UCCE)

Abstract

Family farm emerged as a new form of agricultural production organization in China in recent years. For the purpose of sustainable development, decision-makers, such as farm owners and policy makers, require the precise information of a family farm's state of operation to adopt measures for management improvement and agricultural contamination reduction. Considering this, we established two evaluation systems for the measurement of family farms' management and environmental performance. As demonstrated in several recent studies, data envelopment analysis (DEA) cross efficiency is a useful approach for evaluating and comparing the performance of decision-making units (DMUs). Regarding family farms' performance evaluation issues, we modified the traditional average cross-efficiency method to be the ultimate comprehensive cross-efficiency approach with the integration of two statistical quantities based on the full consideration of family farms' unique features, such as vulnerability and seasonality, resulting from the influence of natural and social factors. Our proposed approach presents more excellent characteristics compared with CCR efficiency and average cross efficiency. Several conclusions regarding the operation of China's family farms are drawn: (i) there is weak positive correlation between family farms' management and environmental performance; (ii) there is an increasing trend for both management and environmental efficiency, along with the augmentation of the utilized agricultural area of family farms, and management performance is therefore more significant; (iii) demand for timely technological instruction to improve family farms' management efficiency is expressed by farm owners who are willing to expand; (iv) to improve family farms' environmental performance, several measures-such as introducing biotechnology, providing subsidies, and environmental education for farmers-should be adopted.

Analysis on Efficiency and Influencing Factors of New Soybean Producing Farms

“…Therefore, the establishment of a market information dissemination platform and the promotion of agricultural information exchange are important ways to improve the technical efficiency of soybean production [23]. (5) In the aspect of external policy, the implementation of the soybean subsidy policy is significant at 10% level of significance. In addition, the regression coefficient is negative, which is opposite to the expected impact direction.…”

“…Kostov et al [4] explored the efficiency difference between family farms and agricultural enterprises, and believed that the intervention of family factors make the production efficiency of family farms higher than that of agricultural enterprises. Yang et al [5] explored the efficiency of family farms in China. It is believed that there is a weak positive correlation between the production efficiency of family farms and environmental performance, and the scale expansion of family farms can improve the production efficiency and environmental performance of family farms.…”

“…The third one is the application of the related efficiency calculation models. Yang et al [5] used the DEA model and improved the cross efficiency model to study the production efficiency and environmental performance evaluation of family farms in China. Zhang et al [16] adopted a two-stage DEA model to analyze the technical efficiency of industrial pollution control in China.…”

The Balanced Scorecard as a Tool Evaluating the Sustainable Performance of Chinese Emerging Family Farms—Evidence from Jilin Province in China

“…The evaluation of family farm sustainable performance is crucial in the Chinese context. In the past few decades, China has realized a dramatic increase in crop production, as well as economic and social improvement in rural areas [23]. The family farm in China is a new agricultural business entity, which is defined as engaging in scale, intensive and commercialized agricultural production and management, with family members as the main labor force and agricultural income as the main source of household income [24].…”

“…The family farm in China is a new agricultural business entity, which is defined as engaging in scale, intensive and commercialized agricultural production and management, with family members as the main labor force and agricultural income as the main source of household income [24]. Many family farms have been emerging in China since the development of the family farm was proposed as a new type of agricultural organization to adapt to the new situation of agricultural development by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in 2013 [23]. In 2015, the Ministry of Agriculture in China conducted a nationwide survey on the number, land area, types, and economic performance of family farms in 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities (excluding Tibet), and these are considered to be the latest and most comprehensive statistics on family farms in China so far.…”