A novel efficiency assessment of dairy farm sustainability

Overview & Synopsis

World food production must increase to meet greater future demand without exacerbating climate change and despite dwindling resources. More efficient dairy farm production is therefore essential if farms are to become- and remain- economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. This study introduced a novel Data Envelopment Analysis framework and demonstrated its superiority over the widely-applied, and so-called, radial models, by using data from a long-term dairy systems experiment comprising of four distinct systems. Not only was the novel model able to provide better measures of technical, environmental and cost efficiencies than radial models, but also it allowed for the disaggregation of efficiencies into resource-specific savings potentials, helping identify specific aspects in which each system could perform better. This exercise highlighted the invaluable contribution that robust modelling methods and data capturing technologies can make to dairy farm sustainability assessments and discussed opportunities for further research.