Efficiency Analysis of Selected Farming Patterns: The Case of Irrigated Systems in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam

Abstract

The objective of this study is to measure the technical, allocative, and cost efficiency for farmers who grow crops following either rice-monocultural patterns or crop-rotation patterns in the non-flooded and flooded areas of the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam. The non-flooded areas are located within irrigated boundary systems, and the flooded areas are located outside these systems. In addition, the determinants of household income and productive efficiencies are identified in the study. Related to productive efficiency, the measured results show that the crop-rotation farmers are more efficient in terms of technical and cost efficiency than the continuous-rice farmers and vice versa for allocative efficiency, for the case of non-flooded areas. Similarly, the mean efficiency score is greater with respect to technical, allocative, and cost efficiency for farmers employing the crop-rotation pattern in comparison with farmers following the continuous-rice pattern. Regarding the factors influencing efficiencies, in the case of non-flooded areas, the estimated results show that although there are some differences in determinants of each component of total productivity, sex, age, education, share of female labor, and farming pattern are found to be the main factors driving changes in most of the components such as technical and allocative efficiency. In the case of flooded areas, all components of total productivity in terms of the technical, allocative, and cost efficiency are impacted by the variation in sex, age, and education.