Technical Efficiency of Sustainable and Conventional Rice Farming: Evidence from the Mekong Delta of Vietnam

Rice is the most important crop in Vietnam’s agriculture sector for its contribution to economic stability and food security. Improving the efficiency of rice farming and expanding production towards sustainability has become one of the national economic development goals. This study aimed to empirically evaluate technical efficiency of rice farms based on their farming practices using observational data from face-to-face interviews with 152 rice farm households in Long An Province in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. The data envelopment analysis model was applied to evaluate the technical and scale efficiencies. Results show that except for farmers applying one practice, the average technical efficiency exceeded 81 %. Farmers who adopted more sustainable practices obtained higher technical efficiency and scale efficiency with scores of 90 % and 91 % respectively. Many farmers with different combinations of farming practices operated under increasing returns to scale. The Tobit model was also applied to estimate the determinant factors of technical efficiency. The results of the Tobit model revealed that the farmer’s education level and farming experience had a significant impact on rice farming efficiency. The study also found an inverted U-shaped relationship between education level and efficiency, which indicates that if farmers had higher education levels beyond the threshold point, their farming efficiency will decrease. The significance of adopting sustainable agriculture practices in rice-producing households was emphasized by the positive correlation observed between the number of sustainable agriculture practices applied and efficiency.