Allocative Efficiency of Resource use on Beekeeping in Chitwan District of Nepal

Agriculture is facing with increasing pollinators decline all over the world affecting the functioning of regulatory and production service of pollination in adverse manner. Study on ways to conserve pollinating agents like bee is crucial in modern intensive agriculture. In this context a study was conducted to estimate the productivity and resource use efficiency of bee keeping in Chitwan district of Nepal. The study used data collected from randomly selected 48 bee keepers using face to face interview technique in the year 2014. Descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis, benefit cost analysis and multiple regression analysis using Cob-Douglas form were employed to achieve study objectives. It was found that farmers were rearing honey bee on an average of about 34 hives per farm with annual productivity of bee products equivalent to 36 Kg honey per hive. Gross margin of beekeeping in the research area was found to be NRs. 3111.55 per hive with undiscounted benefit cost ratio of 1.71. Human labour use, expenditure on sugar, drugs and comb foundation and; migration cost were significantly contributing to the productivity of beekeeping and were required to increase their use by 39%, 34% and 74%, respectively to achieve optimum profit. It was suggested to increase the level of all variable inputs through loan, subsidy and insurance to promote beekeeping enterprise in the study area for ensuring optimum profit to farmers and conservation of the most important agent of pollination

Productivity and Resource Use Efficiency in Wheat: A Stochastic Production Frontier Approach

Farm level technical efficiency and its determinants in wheat production in the state of Bihar has been studied using stochastic frontier production function model. The average productivity of wheat was reported 28.43 q/ha which was below the national average of 30.33 q/ha during 2016-17. The resource inputs were found inelastic and not being properly utilized. All the resource inputs were found positive and significant at 1 per cent and 5 per cent level of probability except machine labour used which was negatively significant, indicating overuse of machine labour or costly machine labour. The mean input efficiency in production of wheat in the state was estimated to be 94 per cent, emphasizing that efficiency may be enhanced by 6 per cent. The factors influencing efficiency were identified as education, family size and landholding size. The mean technical efficiency was found to be 0.94 indicted that optimal and sustainable use of resource inputs may further raise the input use efficiency in wheat production by 6 per cent and consequently boost up the income of the wheat cultivators in the state

Resource Use Efficiency of Maize Cultivation in Bahraich District of Uttar Pradesh

Study on resource use efficiency in maize cultivation was conducted in Tejwapur block of Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh. Primary data was collected from 100 respondents including three categories i.e. marginal, small and medium sized sample farms. Purposive cum random sampling technique was applied to draw the sample of respondents. Personal interview method of data collection, tabular and functional analysis was applied to bring the study at final stage. Result of study revealed that maize production shows the stage of decreasing return to scale and MVP indicate further scope to invest on four factors included in the study to achieve the position of optimum resource combination and maximization of the profit

Resource use efficiency of US electricity generating plants during the SO2 trading regime: A distance function approach.

This paper measures resource use efficiency of electricity generating plants in the United States under the SO2 trading regime. Resource use efficiency is defined as the product of technical efficiency and environmental efficiency, where the latter is the ratio of good output (electricity) to bad output (SO2) with reference to the best practice firm, i.e., one that is producing an optimal mix of good and bad outputs. This concept of environmental efficiency is similar to that of output oriented allocative efficiency. Using output distance functions we compare three methods for the calculation of resource use efficiency, namely, stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), deterministic parametric programming and nonparametric linear programming. This paper reveals the strengths and weaknesses of these methods for estimating efficiency. Both SFA and linear programming approaches can estimate the efficiency scores. For plants in the dataset the overall geometric mean of the three methods for technical efficiency, environmental efficiency and resource use efficiency is 0.737, 0.335 and 0.248, respectively. The rank correlation coefficient between technical efficiency, environmental efficiency and resource use efficiency is 0.213, 0.617 and 0.877, respectively. The regression analyses of performance across plants shows units in phase I of the SO2 trading programme are negatively related to measures of economic and environmental performance. This suggests that the market for SO2 allowances, per se, may not be minimizing compliance cost. We also find that a decrease in SO2 emission rates not only increases environmental efficiency but also leads to an increase in resource use efficiency. This finding concurs with the hypothesis that enhancement in the environmental performance of a firm leads to an increase in its overall efficiency of resource use as well.Technical efficiency ; Environmental efficiency ; Resource-use efficiency ; Distance functions ; SO2 allowance program

Pattern Identification of Land use and Resource use efficiencies in Agriculture in Jhabua Tribal district in Madhya Pradesh

In the fifties and sixties of 20th century, the regional economists identified a regional process of circular and cumulative causation of under- development of resource-rich but backward regions (Myrdal) and core-periphery relation of developed industrial regions with resource hinterland regions (Friedman). In the seventies, environment and development conflicts were identified leading to ecological and socio-economic degradation in the resource regions. In the regional framework, the tribal regions as sub-national regions have come under serious anthropogenic impacts due to increasing demands for resource materials for trade and industries. Growing awareness of environmental degradation and depletion, the policy makers, planners, environmentalist and economists have focused their attention to examine the efficiencies of land use and the resource use in agriculture, identifying the ecological and economic efficiencies of the resource use pattern. Agriculture, being an organic economic activity, has a close relation with the natural resources like land and water. The tribal ecology is changing and the tribes have gradually adapted to agriculture activities and a distinct agro-ecosystem has grown in tribal areas. The tribes are trying to diversify the resource use for their ecological and economic sustenance. The government is also influencing resource use and land use as development strategy in the tribal region. It is necessary to examine the land use and the resource use efficiencies in the agricultural areas in regional and temporal framework. Land use and resource use efficiencies have been measured to evaluate ecologic and economic efficiency and growth in agriculture. Since, agriculture operates in system dynamic framework in which agriculture has close relation with other uses like forestry in ecological landscape in eco-regional framework and is affected by climatic change and other anthropogenic impacts resulting from industrialization and urbanization. it is necessary to identify the land use and resource use efficiencies in agriculture in the tribal eco-system. Along with land, other natural resources like water are important in agriculture. The efficiency of irrigation may be an indicator to identify the use of water resource and its efficiency in agriculture. The land use and irrigation intensity are used as an indicators for measuring land use and resource use efficiency in this study. In this paper, the land use intensity has been measured by (1) Analysis of the land use extension in agriculture in different tahsils of Jhabua district to identify the level of resource use in different regions. (2) The land use and irrigation intensity has been used as measure of resource use intensity and efficiency in different tahsils in study area (3) The agricultural land use efficiency has been measured using standard coefficient, which is a modified Kendall’s Ranking Coefficient method for agricultural land use zoning based on land use efficienciesPattern identification, land use and resource use efficiency, Kendall's Ranking coefficient

Analysis of Resource use Efficiency in Apple Production on Outer Himalayan Range of Chenab Valley

The present study was carried out in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir state with special emphasis on selected districts viz., Doda, Kishtwar and Rambam, as these regions had the highest area and production under apple crop. Both primary as well as secondary data has been used as per requirements of the study. A multistage sampling technique had been used for the present study. To study the functional relationship between yield of apple and the selected independent variables, Cobb Douglas type of production function in log linear form had been fitted to the collected data for marginal farms, small farms, medium farms and on all the farms put together. The analysis had shown that the co-efficient of determination (R2) indicated that 68.3 per cent, 71.2 per cent, 73.7 per cent and 75.5 per cent of the variations in the output of apple had been explained by the six independent variables included in the production function for the marginal, for the Small, for the medium and for the overall sample apple growers respectively. The analysis had also revealed that the sum of the production elasticities for the marginal farmers was 1.403, for the small farmers was 1.57, for the medium farmers was 2.53 and for all sample farmers put together it was 1.989 which showed operation of increasing return to for all categories of apple farmers. Increasing trend in returns to scale of apple suggested the planners to plan strategies for long run so as to safeguard the interest of apple growers involved in the production process

Toward a systematized framework for resource efficiency indicators

The transition toward resource efficient production and consumption patterns is currently one of the main challenges in engineering, environmental science and especially in governmental policies. This transition has led to a proliferation of meanings related to the resource efficiency concept, resulting in a wide variety of indicators. In this paper, we propose a systematized framework in which resource efficiency indicators can be structured and comprehensively positioned. The aim is to provide a proper understanding of the scope and limitations of particular existing resource efficiency indicators in order to assist policy makers and the scientific community in the application and further development of indicators. This framework covers all different resource use-related aspects evaluated in existing approaches, including simple accounting of resource extraction and use; environmental impact assessment due to resource extraction and use; accounting and environmental impact assessment of specific processes and of full supply chains; analyses at micro-scale and macro-scale; and analysis of both natural resources versus waste-as-resources. To illustrate the potential application of the framework, a set of currently used indicators was selected, whereupon these indicators were structured and evaluated within the framework

Classifying resource efficiency indicators based on LCA practices

Our whole society depends on the use of natural resources. Despite the fact that most natural resources are limited, they are not always used in a sustainable way. To monitor the transition towards a more resource efficient society, a wide variety of indicators has been developed over the years, both within a policy context and an industrial context. However, these indicators are not univocally defined, which generates confusion about the real meaning of resource efficiency. Indeed, the term resource efficiency is interpreted in different ways: from the simple accounting of resource extraction to environmental impact assessment related to resource availability and provision of resources ; from the micro-level of products and companies to the macro-level of regions and countries ; from a gate-to-gate perspective to a life cycle perspective or from a national perspective1 to a global perspective . Also the considered resource range (which natural resource types are taken into account) and the used quantification metric (monetary or physical) can vary from indicator to indicator. Another issue is the provenience of resources: in some studies is referred to natural resources, while in others waste is also considered to be a potential resource . This paper tries to bring order into these different visions by proposing a systematized framework for resource efficiency indicators based on LCA practices. The proposed framework is subdivided in multiple levels based on the interpretations summarized above. The use of the framework is illustrated by structuring several resource efficiency indicators in practice today, e.g. the GDP over DMC (Gross Domestic Product over Domestic Material Consumption), used within a policy context, or process-efficiency, used within an industrial context. Within this framework, resource efficiency indicators can be classified and critically evaluated, identifying possibilities for further development and improvement

Organic farming and resource efficiency

The Chapter discusses the efficiency of nutrient and energy use in organic farming, regarding the pressing need to make efficient use of natural resources. Nutrient recycling, the use of adapted plant varieties and energy-saving through the ban of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer are organic farming practices that enhance resource efficiency

Improved resource efficiency and cascading utilisation of renewable materials

In light of various environmental problems and challenges concerning resource allocation, the utilisation of renewable resources is increasingly important for the efficient use of raw materials. Therefore, cascading utilisation (i.e., the multiple material utilisations of renewable resources prior to their conversion into energy) and approaches that aim to further increase resource efficiency (e.g., the utilisation of by-products) can be considered guiding principles. This paper therefore introduces the Special Volume “Improved Resource Efficiency and Cascading Utilisation of Renewable Materials”. Because both research aspects, resource efficiency and cascading utilisation, belong to several disciplines, the Special Volume adopts an interdisciplinary perspective and presents 16 articles, which can be divided into four subjects: Innovative Materials based on Renewable Resources and their Impact on Sustainability and Resource Efficiency, Quantitative Models for the Integrated Optimisation of Production and Distribution in Networks for Renewable Resources, Information Technology-based Collaboration in Value Generating Networks for Renewable Resources, and Consumer Behaviour towards Eco-friendly Products. The interdisciplinary perspective allows a comprehensive overview of current research on resource efficiency, which is supplemented with 15 book reviews showing the extent to which textbooks of selected disciplines already refer to resource efficiency. This introductory article highlights the relevance of the four subjects, presents summaries of all papers, and discusses future research directions. The overall contribution of the Special Volume is that it bridges the resource efficiency research of selected disciplines and that it presents several approaches for more environmentally sound production and consumption