437
Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Chapter 13
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4474-8.ch013
ABSTRACT
Nitrogen, phosphate, and herbicide use are three main environmental problems caused by agriculture.
Modelling these undesirable outputs and other detrimental side efects of production activities has at-
tracted considerable attention and debate among production economists. A common approach is to treat
detrimental variables as inputs mainly using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which has enjoyed a
lot of success over the years. On the other hand, Free Disposable Hull (FDH) has not enjoyed as much
success as its counterpart, DEA. This chapter demonstrates how environmental efciency can be mod-
elled using both DEA and FDH under strong and weak disposability assumptions. Results show that
weak disposability assumption is more superior in achieving relatively high emission reductions and
that FDH tends to allocate efciency to more DMUs compared to DEA.
1. INTRODUCTION: FARMING AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Nitrogen, phosphate and herbicide use are three main environmental problems caused by agriculture.
Nitrogen and phosphate surpluses are induced by excessive application of manure and chemical. Part of
these nutrients is taken up by plants, but a part is emitted to the environment. The overuse of fertilizers
on crops is typical of farming in general. In addition, increased soil acidity affects plant health and crop
yield (WWF, 1986). Acidification is also more prevalent largely due to the use of inorganic nitrogenous
fertilizers such as urea and ammonium sulphate. Under high rainfall conditions nitrate leaching occurs,
which also promotes acidification (ibid).
Non-Parametric Estimation of
Environmental Effciency Using
Data Envelopment Analysis
and Free Disposable Hull
Richard Mulwa
University of Nairobi, Kenya