A bioeconomic approach to optimize mussel culture production
Autor: | Alhambra M. Cubillo, Isabel Fuentes-Santos, Uxío Labarta |
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Rok vydání: | 2017 |
Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Economic efficiency Ecology 010604 marine biology & hydrobiology Scheduling (production processes) Nonparametric statistics 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences Agricultural engineering Aquaculture management Management Monitoring Policy and Law Aquatic Science Marginal analysis 01 natural sciences Malmquist index Culture strategies Sustainability 040102 fisheries Economics 0401 agriculture forestry and fisheries Production (economics) Productivity Stochastic frontier function Parametric statistics |
Zdroj: | Digital.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC instname |
Popis: | 16 páginas, 5 figuras, 6 tablas The fast rise of aquaculture practices during the last decades has increased the need of adopting culture strategies to optimize production and guarantee the sustainability of the sector. This study aimed to provide a management tool to help mussel farmers identify optimal culture strategies and use production inputs efficiently. For this purpose, we evaluated the productivity and efficiency of different stocking densities and culture durations by the joint application of parametric and nonparametric frontier analysis at the farm scale. The translog production function outperformed the Cobb–Douglas model currently applied in most farm-scale frontier analyses. This model estimates that the optimal culture density is ca. 700 ind m−1, given that at lower densities, efficiency decreases (under-usage of available space) and mussel quality did not improve, and at higher densities, mortality and dislodgements from the ropes led to economic losses. This work also showed that marginal analysis does not provide an accurate estimation of the economic efficiency when unitary costs and prices are not constant. According to the Malmquist indices, mussel farmers should shorten the culture period to improve their productivity. All these results support the joint use of parametric and nonparametric frontier analysis as management tool for optimizing input use and scheduling aquaculture production This study was supported by the contract-project PROINSA Mussel Farm, codes CSIC 20061089 and 0704101100001, a CSIC PIE 201030E071 project, and Xunta de Galicia PGIDIT09MMA038E. A.M. Cubillo was also funded by a Fundaci on Juana de Vega postdoctoral fellowship during manuscript prepara- tion in the Institute of Marine Research (IMAR), Centre for Ecological Modelling, IMAR-DCEA, Faculty of Science and Technology, Portugal |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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