Technical Efficiency and Public Policies in Agriculture: An Analysis for the Eastern Amazon Region

espanolEl sector agricola es uno de los mas dinamicos de la economia brasilera y es responsable —aproximadamente— del 30% del PIB del estado de Para, ubicado en la Amazonia oriental brasilera. Esto se debe —principalmente— a las politicas publicas desarrolladas para el sector, con enfasis en la Politica Nacional de Asistencia Tecnica y Extension Rural (PNATER) y Credito Rural, ademas de los programas condicionales de transferencia de efectivo, como Bolsa Familia. Ante este escenario, el objetivo de este articulo es determinar la eficiencia tecnica de las instalaciones agricolas rurales en Para y observar el efecto de estas politicas en su ineficiencia. La metodologia utilizada es el enfoque de la frontera estocastica Los datos utilizados se obtuvieron en una tabulacion especial basada en el Censo Agricola de 2006. Los principales resultados muestran que las politicas de credito rural, los programas de asistencia social y el apoyo tecnico son importantes para reducir la ineficiencia tecnica de las instalaciones rurales en el Estado de Para. Sin embargo, esta ultima no es estadisticamente significativa. EnglishThe agricultural sector in one of the most dynamic industries of the Brazilian economy and is responsible for about 30% of the GDP of the state of Para, located in the Brazilian Eastern Amazon region. This is mainly due to the public policies developed for the sector, with emphasis on the National Policy of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (PNATER) and Rural Credit, in addition to conditional cash transfer programs such as Bolsa Familia (Family Allowance). Given this scenario, the purpose of this research is to determine the technical efficiency of the agricultural rural facilities of Para, and observe the effect of these policies on their inefficiency. The methodology employed in order to achieve these objectives is the stochastic frontier approach, and the data used was obtained from a special tabulation based on the 2006 Agricultural Census. The main results evidence that rural credit policies, social welfare programs, and technical support are important to reduce the technical inefficiency of the rural facilities of the State of Para. The latter, however, is not statistically significant.