A Within-Farm Efficiency Comparison of Silvopasture Systems with Conventional Pasture and Forestry in Northeast Argentina
通过农场内配对比较，评估了林牧系统（树木与牧场结合）相对于传统养牛和人工林的技术效率，发现林牧系统效率更高，且不同系统存在规模报酬差异。
Agroforestry, which has multiple inputs and outputs, would benefit from scrutiny of economic efficiency because levels of adoption have not met expectations. Previous literature estimated the efficiency of agricultural systems using data envelopment analysis; however, the vast variability between farms makes comparing systems difficult. This study uses paired, within-farm comparisons of silvopasture, a combination of planted trees and pasture, to conventional cattle-ranching and plantation forestry, to evaluate the relative technical efficiency. Silvopasture proves to be more efficient than conventional cattle-ranching. Forestry demonstrated increasing returns to scale, cattle-raising demonstrated decreasing returns to scale for large-scale farmers, and silvopasture was intermediate. <i></i>