Technical, economic, social and environmental efficiency of French dairy farms under signs of quality and origin

Evaluating the overall performance of farms is a twofold challenge: scientific, to improve performance evaluation methods; and political, to answer queries from professionals and public decision-makers. Our objective is to measure and compare the performance of different types of farms (PDO vs conventional farming, Organic vs non-Organic, Organic vs PDO) based on total factor productivity measurements (Data Envelopment Analysis scores) and environmental indicators.  To carry out this evaluation, we merge economic references and financial data from the FADN with productive and structural data from the agricultural census (for 2000 and 2010) to be able to distinguish dairy farmers into two groups according to whether or not they value their production with quality signs. We also integrate agricultural practices and land characteristics to take into account the relationship of farms to the specific scarce resources of their agricultural area. Finally, the temporal analysis of performance over a long period allows us to assess the effect of technology adoption on performance.