TY - JOUR

T1 - Eco-efficiency analysis of sustainability-certified coffee production in Vietnam

AU - Ho, Thong Quoc

AU - Hoang, Viet Ngu

AU - Wilson, Clevo

AU - Nguyen, Trung Thanh

N1 - Funding information: The authors would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the earlier version of this paper. The second author expresses thanks to the Tokyo Center for Economic Research and Aoyama Gakuin University for his fellowship in Japan during which time the final revision of the paper was completed. Data collection was funded by The Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) , under grant number PCO15-0724-011 .

PY - 2018/5/10

Y1 - 2018/5/10

N2 - There is a belief that sustainability-certified coffee production helps increase economic benefits to farmers and reduces negative environmental impacts. However, the international empirical evidence is not conclusive. Also, there is a lack of empirical evidence for Vietnam - the world's second-largest coffee producing country. This paper provides the first empirical examination of the differences in eco-efficiency between conventional and sustainability-certified coffee-growing farms in Vietnam. Data of 726 farms in Vietnam over three crop years from 2012/13 to 2014/15 are analysed. Environmental pressures measured by the level of consumption of nitrogen, phosphorus, irrigation water, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and land are investigated in relation to the value-added of coffee production. Empirical results show that in each crop year, coffee farms could reduce environmental pressures by more than 50% while holding the value-added of outputs constant. On average, sustainability-certified farms are found to be more eco-efficient than conventional farms, but efficiency differences appear to converge over time. This convergence may be due to positive externalities of certification, less compliance to certification standards or the combination of these effects. Higher eco-efficiency levels are also correlated with farms located in higher elevation locations, having wind-break trees, and using drip or spray irrigation systems. These should be taken into account as policy options to sustain and improve the positive effects of certification in regard to both economic and environmental aspects, rather than rapid expansion of certified production. Further, one could incorporate ecological and environmental dimensions and welfare into eco-efficiency models and a stochastic production environment may be a useful modeling approach.

AB - There is a belief that sustainability-certified coffee production helps increase economic benefits to farmers and reduces negative environmental impacts. However, the international empirical evidence is not conclusive. Also, there is a lack of empirical evidence for Vietnam - the world's second-largest coffee producing country. This paper provides the first empirical examination of the differences in eco-efficiency between conventional and sustainability-certified coffee-growing farms in Vietnam. Data of 726 farms in Vietnam over three crop years from 2012/13 to 2014/15 are analysed. Environmental pressures measured by the level of consumption of nitrogen, phosphorus, irrigation water, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and land are investigated in relation to the value-added of coffee production. Empirical results show that in each crop year, coffee farms could reduce environmental pressures by more than 50% while holding the value-added of outputs constant. On average, sustainability-certified farms are found to be more eco-efficient than conventional farms, but efficiency differences appear to converge over time. This convergence may be due to positive externalities of certification, less compliance to certification standards or the combination of these effects. Higher eco-efficiency levels are also correlated with farms located in higher elevation locations, having wind-break trees, and using drip or spray irrigation systems. These should be taken into account as policy options to sustain and improve the positive effects of certification in regard to both economic and environmental aspects, rather than rapid expansion of certified production. Further, one could incorporate ecological and environmental dimensions and welfare into eco-efficiency models and a stochastic production environment may be a useful modeling approach.

KW - Coffee growing

KW - Data envelopment analysis

KW - Eco-efficiency

KW - Eco-frontier framework

KW - Sustainability certification

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85043582260&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.147

DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.147

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85043582260

VL - 183

SP - 251

EP - 260

JO - Journal of cleaner production

JF - Journal of cleaner production

SN - 0959-6526

ER -