Bootstrapped input efficiency use of specialized potato production in Kosovo

Abstract

Although Kosovo’s agriculture initiatives have allowed for opportunities to spur vegetable production, little has been done to address how efficient are farmers at using inputs. The state of input efficiency in growing potatoes is examined in the study using farm survey data. There is also a comparison of potato yields as a measure of productivity with different countries in Southeast Europe and with some emphasis on input use. After accounting for suspected bias with the bootstrap input-oriented model, input efficiency ranged from 0.39-0.91 with an average of 0.73. Depending on the farm, a naive model would induce a bias of 0.04-0.17 in input efficiency use. This bias can vary with sample size. Additionally, the findings suggest an encouraging input efficiency advantage for farmers who care about their soil quality as they practice potato production. One policy implication of the results suggests further input use decreases because the sampled farms are found to operate under decreasing returns to scale.

Keywords

• non-parametric frontier technique
• bootstrap input-oriented model
• specialized potato production
• southeast europe