Eficiência técnica e de escala em diferentes sistemas familiares de produção de leite da microrregião de Uberlândia (MG)

Abstract

The milk production systems adopted by family producers in the microregion of Uberlândia (MG) are not well defined, since there are several specificities to be considered; thus, this study aimed to characterize and evaluate the technical and scale performance of the feeding systems practiced by 22 family milk producers of this microregion, during the year 2013. The sampling process was not probabilistic by trial; data were analyzed by means of the software CU$TO BOVINO LEITE 1.0 which allowed to estimate the total annual production costs, revenues, average price, gross and net margins, profitability, as well as the break-even point of each property studied. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA was used through SIAD - Integrated Decision Support System software to analyze the technical and scale efficiency of selected production units (DMU's). The input variables were the area, the number of animals, feed cost, effective operational cost minus the cost with feeding and the output variables were the quantity of milk produced and revenue with the milk. Among the production systems pointed out, the one with the offer of pasture as the sole source of roughage and supplementation with concentrates in the rainy period, and corn or sorghum silages as bulky and supplementation of animals with concentrates, dry period, was prevalent in 40.91% of the properties surveyed; 50% (11 farms) had performance poorly, i.e., were inefficient; and 31.8% of the total number of farms (7) inefficient farms both technically and in scale; 13.6% of the total (three farms) did not have efficiency in scale and 4.6% of the farms analyzed (one property) was efficient in scale but technically inefficient. It was observed that all the efficient decision-making units (DMU's) presented milk revenue greater than the sum of the COE (effective operational cost) and feeding costs. Information about technical and scale performance can be used both by producers for decision-making to improve its performance and achieve maximum potential of efficiency as by governmental bodies to define public policies that encourage the increase of productivity and income of farms.