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Technical- and Environmental-Efficiency Analysis of Irrigated Cotton-Cropping Systems in Punjab, Pakistan Using Data Envelopment Analysis

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Abstract

Cotton cropping in Pakistan uses substantial quantities of resources and adversely affects the environment with pollutants from the inputs, particularly pesticides. A question remains regarding to what extent the reduction of such environmental impact is possible without compromising the farmers’ income. This paper investigates the environmental, technical, and economic performances of selected irrigated cotton-cropping systems in Punjab to quantify the sustainability of cotton farming and reveal options for improvement. Using mostly primary data, our study quantifies the technical, cost, and environmental efficiencies of different farm sizes. A set of indicators has been computed to reflect these three domains of efficiency using the data envelopment analysis technique. The results indicate that farmers are broadly environmentally inefficient; which primarily results from poor technical inefficiency. Based on an improved input mix, the average potential environmental impact reduction for small, medium, and large farms is 9, 13, and 11 %, respectively, without compromising the economic return. Moreover, the differences in technical, cost, and environmental efficiencies between small and medium and small and large farm sizes were statistically significant. The second-stage regression analysis identifies that the entire farm size significantly affects the efficiencies, whereas exposure to extension and training has positive effects, and the sowing methods significantly affect the technical and environmental efficiencies. Paradoxically, the formal education level is determined to affect the efficiencies negatively. This paper discusses policy interventions that can improve the technical efficiency to ultimately increase the environmental efficiency and reduce the farmers’ operating costs.

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Acknowledgments

This authors wish to express their gratitude to the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) and the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) for their financial support to the doctoral research and field work that generated the paper. The authors also thank the three anonymous reviewers, whose valuable comments helped in making substantial improvements in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, Bangkok, 12120, Thailand

    Asmat Ullah

  2. Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, UMR G-Eau, 34398, Montpellier, France

    Sylvain R. Perret

Authors
  1. Asmat Ullah
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  2. Sylvain R. Perret
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Correspondence to Asmat Ullah.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 9.

Table 9 Correlation matrix of efficiency (2-tailed Spearman’s rho correlation coefficients)
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Ullah, A., Perret, S.R. Technical- and Environmental-Efficiency Analysis of Irrigated Cotton-Cropping Systems in Punjab, Pakistan Using Data Envelopment Analysis. Environmental Management 54, 288–300 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-014-0300-4

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