Abstract
Standing out as the world’s leading producer of sugarcane and a leader in sugar production and export volume, Brazil plays a central role in ethanol manufacturing and biomass generation. Despite the sector’s significance, few studies have focused on evaluating the technical efficiency and socio-economic determinants of sugarcane agricultural production in Brazil. Given the economic importance of the activity and this literature gap, the aim of this study was to calculate the technical efficiency of sugarcane production using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method for a sample of municipalities in the states of São Paulo, Goiás, Minas Gerais, and Mato Grosso, using data from the 2017 Agricultural Census and the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Biofuels. Additionally, a Tobit model was employed to identify the socio-economic variables that affect the productive efficiency of sugarcane in these states. The results indicated that the mesoregions of Ribeirão Preto and São José do Rio Preto in São Paulo, and the Triângulo Mineiro/Alto Paranaíba in Minas Gerais, showed the highest production efficiencies in the municipalities. Furthermore, the Tobit model results pointed out that the most relevant socio-economic variables for the analyzed states were the presence or absence of mills in the municipality and the mesoregion to which the municipality belongs.
Keywords:
Ethanol; DEA; Tobit