Determinação da eficiência técnica e da rentabilidade econômica dos produtores de leite do estado do Ceará: Uma aplicação de fronteira estocástica de produção

Abstract

Analyzes the technical efficiency and economic profitabillity of commercail dairy farmers from Ceará State. The stochastic frontier production methodology was used to estimate milk producers technical efficiency. As primary conclusion, the study observed a high rate of mean technical efficiency in the set of companies, about 80%, which points, however, to a relevant space to the unities efficiency growth, especially considering the efficiency rates dispersion. As it regards to the variable used to define the production frontier, all of them were statistically significant, and the expense with labor was the variable that presented the main contribuition to the production growth. Among varables used tio expalain techb=nical inefficiency, all resulted significant, and the genetic group of the herd was the one that presented the main participation at decreasing inefficiency. After the estimative of each company's efficiency, the present research analyzed the behavior of some technical indicators of productivity and economic profitability. It fouond that as the technical efficiency of the unities increased the indexes of productivity also improved, as well as a reduction of operational expenses and an elevation of profit margins. Finally, the research focused the important correlation between the efficiency level and the volume produced, suggesting a scale effect on milk production.