Context-dependent assessment of the efficiency of Lithuanian family farms

Abstract

The context-dependent data envelopment analysis ensures that the observations are stratified with respect to their levels of efficiency. The latter instance of stratification enables one to draw more reasonable recommendations regarding performance improvements. The research aims to identify and quantify the discrepancies in efficiency levels among Lithuanian family farms. The crop farms were grouped into the nine strata associated with different levels of efficiency, the livestock farms were grouped into the five strata, and the mixed farms were grouped into the six strata. Therefore, the crop farms appeared to be the most heterogeneous in terms of efficiency and productivity. The results showed that the mixed and livestock farms were specific with certain strata featuring inflated values of the progress scores. Accordingly, support measures for the mixed and crop farms should take into account the underlying differences in the farm performance.

JEL Codes: C14, C44, D24, Q12.