Analyse de l'eco-efficience du secteur laitier reunionnais: confrontation des objectifs productiviste et environnementaliste

In: Revue d'économie politique, Band 123, Heft 4

Abstract

Various methodological improvements in production function modelling allow the integration of undesirable outputs, the distinction between stakeholders' objective-function and the sectoral aggregation of individual technologies. This paper gathers these concepts in order to assess the eco-efficiency of the dairy sector in La Reunion. Our assessment compare two objectives seemingly opposed: the productivist approach and the environmentalist approach. According to the productivist approach, focused on the milk production maximization, inefficiency reduction could create an increase of 54% of the dairy production, without additional undesirable emissions. At the same time, a better environmental management leads to an important potential decrease of undesirable outputs as greenhouse gases or nitrogen surpluses (- 46 %), given the current milk production. Unexpectedly, the two approaches lead to similar values of environmental indicators: Nitrogen surplus per liter of milk and greenhouse gases per liter of milk. On an insular territory as La Reunion, impacted by the food self-sufficiency issue of overseas department, efficiency sectoral analysis appears to be a powerful tool to support decision plan, as it allows an assessment of optimal allocation of local resources and an optimization of imported materials for agricultural sector. Adapted from the source document.