Effect of adoption of organic farming on technical efficiency of olive-growing farms: empirical evidence from West Bank of Palestine

Abstract

Organic farming is one of the methods that increases the value added of agricultural products in a sustainable way. This paper examines how the adoption of organic farming has impacted the technical efficiency of Palestinian olive-growing farms in the West Bank. Using cross-sectional data of olive farms in the Jenin governorate, we employ an input-oriented data envelopment analysis framework to compute radial and input use efficiencies. Considering heterogeneity in technology between organic and conventional farming, a metafrontier with a directional distance function approach was applied. As self-selection bias may exist due to the decision to adopt organic farming, we apply the endogenous switching regression method to reduce bias caused by unobserved heterogeneity. Results suggest that organic farms in Jenin are not less efficient than conventional farms. Their organic farming method improves input use efficiency with respect to labor and cost relative to conventional farming. While organic farming is commonly considered to be less efficient and more costly, our findings from Jenin imply that it is, in fact, a more efficient method. We suggest that promoting organic olive farming could offer an effective strategy for small farms to add value, despite the severe geopolitical constraints of farming in the West Bank.

Assessing the level of organic farming development in the European countries

“…Kowalska and Bieniek (2022) reviewed the development of organic farming in Europe and the EU to determine incentives for farmers to switch to this type of activity. Thus, with the help of organic farming in the operation of olive farms on the west coast of Palestine (Kashiwagi & Kamiyama, 2023), the level of added value of agriculture began to increase steadily. An equally important issue in this context is the financial sustainability of farms that engage in organic farming (Dono et al, 2022).…”

The impact of climate change on the Palestinian sectoral reallocation of labor

“…Moreover, due to structural shifts in the Palestinian economy, particularly following the establishment of the Palestinian authority (Angrist 1996), individuals with higher levels of education tend to gravitate toward sectors other than agriculture, especially the service sector. Additionally, as agriculture in the Palestinian territories often relies on traditional cultivation techniques and conventional farming practices (Kashiwagi and Kamiyama 2023), the likelihood of engagement in the agricultural sector diminishes with advancing age, partly attributed to the physical demands associated with agricultural work, which tend to decline with age. The age effect may also be indicative of its impact on self-employment.…”