Cooperativismo agrícola e eficiência técnica da produção: o caso da castanha-de-caju do assentamento São José II

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze the technical efficiency of cashew nut production in agrarian reform settlements, considering its relationship with agricultural cooperatives. For this, the São José II Settlement (Che Guevara) was taken as a reference, in the state of Ceará. The study is exploratory and descriptive, involving the collection of secondary and primary data, the latter being obtained through a questionnaire for the analysis of cashew production for the agricultural year of 2018, which had been answered by 42 farmers of the settlement in question. It should be noted that the 2018 production in the settlement was marked by the incidence of pests, and given that producers do not use chemical pesticides, the settlers chose to burn the compromised cashew trees. The fires caused an imbalance in the quantity produced of the cashew nut, making the estimation of the efficiency frontier complex. Therefore, in order to obtain more consistent results, we sought to minimize the heterogeneity in the quantity of cashew nuts produced, considering the reality of each agricultural establishment. In this case, the establishments were subdivided into two groups (group A and group B), determined from the calculation of the average productivity (Kg / ha). In the first group, establishments with above-average productivity were considered, and in the second group, establishments with below-average productivity were classified. As a result, we sought, from the primary data, the measurement of the technical efficiency of the establishments, through the mathematical programming model - Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) -, with variable returns to scale, and with oriented output. The results of the estimates showed that 30% of the establishments in the study belong to group A, which had the highest number of efficient establishments, as well as the lowest levels of inefficiency. The efficiency frontiers, of this group, pointed out that 54% of the establishments remained at the efficiency frontier, and 46% reached scores between 0.90 and 0.99. Of the seven establishments identified as efficient, four served as a reference for inefficient establishments. As for group B, it was found that 29 establishments in the study belong to this group, which represents 70% of the total study population. In this case, it was found that only 20.69% of establishments in this group were on the frontier of efficiency. On the other hand, 79.31% were considered inefficient, of which eight reached the worst technical efficiency scores, representing a high level of inefficiency. It is concluded that the fact that the settlement's producers are linked to agricultural cooperatives does not guarantee that the establishments work on the frontier of technical efficiency of production. In this specific case, the actions provided by agricultural cooperatives contribute largely to the commercialization and the entrepreneurial initiative - represented by a mini factory for processing cashew nuts present in the settlement itself, which makes São José II has stood out among other settlements in the state of Ceará.