No Evidence of Trade-Off between Farm Efficiency and Resilience: Dependence of Resource-Use Efficiency on Land-Use Diversity.
Efficiency in the use of resources stream-lined for expected conditions could lead to reduced system diversity and consequently endanger resilience. We tested the hypothesis of a trade-off between farm resource-use efficiency and land-use diversity. We applied stochastic frontier production models to assess the dependence of resource-use-efficiency on land-use diversity as illustrated by the Shannon-Weaver index. Total revenue in relation to use of capital, land and labour on the farms in Southern Finland with a size exceeding 30 ha was studied. The data were extracted from the Finnish Profitability Bookkeeping data. Our results indicate that there is either no trade-off or a negligible trade-off of no economic importance. The small dependence of resource-use efficiency on land-use diversity can be positive as well as negative. We conclude that diversification as a strategy to enhance farm resilience does not necessarily constrain resource-use efficiency.
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Saimaankatu 11, 15140 Lahti, Finland.
Helena
H
Kahiluoto
Natural Resources Institute Finland, 31600 Jokioinen, Finland.
Janne
J
Kaseva
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