Análise da eficiência e do risco de propriedades leiteiras no Estado de Minas Gerais

Abstract

Dairy farming is important to the economic development and to create wealth and income for farmers in Brazil and, in particular, in Minas Gerais State. The productive, economic and zootechnical efficiency of the sector is very low, reducing the level of attractiveness of the milk business and increasing a long- term risk of insolvency of dairy farms. Furthermore, risk analyzes are widely discussed in the literature within the context of firms, but they are still little studied in dairy farming. The Firm Theory (subdivided into Theory of Production, Theory of Costs and Theory of Income) allows analyzing the internal performance of firms and setting a connection among market interferences on their productive performance. Indeed, this theory becomes fundamental in the process of analyzing the efficiency and risks of dairy farms. This study is relevant to the national farming and, in particular, for Minas Gerais State. Furthermore, the lack of studies on efficiency and risk on the milk production chain on the perspective of the Firm Theory reinforces the relevance of this research. The general purpose was to analyze the impact of the level of technical efficiency and the risk of variation in product (milk) prices on the economic performance of dairy farms in the Minas Gerais State. Through quantitative data analysis techniques, such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Monte Carlo Simulation, different aspects related to efficiency and risk were investigated in 485 dairy farms in Minas Gerais State. On the first study, the analysis allowed us to identify different aspects of the relative efficiency of farms with family labor and to propose, as a benchmark, a new indicator, the Milk Input Commitment Index (MICI), which allows analyzing the efficiency of dairy farms, regarding the use of inputs. On the second study, it was possible to identify the main efficiency characteristics that differ farms with mixed labor and propose a framework for the use of inputs for the sector. On the third study, the analysis of milk price variation allowed us to understand how dairy farms must have high efficiencies so that the risks of milk price variation do not impact the sector. Two risk indicators were proposed: (i) the Break-even price and (ii) the Milk Price Tolerance Index (MPTI), allow to identify what reduction in milk prices that dairy farms support without causing economic losses. Thus, the contributions of this research can be used by milk producers, so that they understand and analyze specific issues of their farms, and for academia, for establishing a connection between the Firm Theory and the area of Agricultural Sciences, and in particular, dairy farming.