The good and the bad: Environmental efficiency in northeastern U.S. dairy farming

Abstract

This study evaluates the environmental performance of northeastern U.S. dairy operations that differ in size using a directional output-distance function that measures the joint production of milk and emissions while incorporating a fourway error approach that captures farm-size heterogeneity, transient and persistent technical efficiency, and random errors. For the emission component, a comprehensive pollution index is generated that incorporates three major sources of pollution in dairy farming: fuel, fertilizer, and livestock. Computed shadow prices and Morishima elasticities of substitution reveal that large dairy operations are environmentally inefficient compared to their smaller counterparts.