@article{Helfand:211719,
      recid = {211719},
      author = {Helfand, Steven and Magalhaes, Marcelo and Rada, Nicholas},
      title = {Brazil's Agricultural Total Factor Productivity Growth by  Farm Size},
      address = {2015},
      number = {1008-2016-80425},
      pages = {82},
      year = {2015},
      abstract = {The role of farm size has recently come to the forefront  of agricultural development debates.
Agricultural  development policy often focuses on small farms given  evidence of their role in
poverty reduction and of higher  yields. Yet policy has also focused on large farms due to  their
share of output, efficiency gains from vertical and  horizontal integration, and potential
employment  generation. Brazil offers an interesting case study because  of its wide spectrum of
farm sizes and the country’s dual  agricultural policy focus towards large  commercial
“agribusiness” enterprises, led by the Ministry  of Agriculture, and “family farms,” led by the
Ministry of  Agrarian Development. Our purpose is to examine the role  that farm size may have
in Brazil’s agricultural total  factor productivity (TFP) growth, which has accelerated at  one of
the world’s fastest rates over the last twenty  years. The data are drawn from the agricultural
censuses of  1985, 1995/96, and 2006, aggregated at the municipality  level into five farm-size
classes. The findings of this  study point to heavy technical efficiency losses across all  size
classes, creating a substantial drag on national  agricultural TFP growth. Moreover, because
farms in the  middle of the size distribution achieved the slowest  technical change and TFP
growth – bookended by faster  growth in the smallest and largest farm-size classes – we  identify
an unexpected and unexplored source of  inefficiency, namely medium-sized farms.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/211719},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.211719},
}