Eficiência técnica na fronteira de expansão agrícola brasileira do Matopiba: Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí e Bahia

Abstract

Agricultural activity in Brazil, with an emphasis on the production of temporary crops, plays a very important role in the GDP. In this context, the new agricultural frontier of Matopiba has experienced significant agricultural expansion, attracting substantial investments and the interest of rural producers. This region is composed of 337 municipalities and gets its name from the initials of the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia. Due to the significant economic importance of Matopiba, this study aimed to examine the technical efficiency of temporary crop production in the region, assuming municipalities as production units. The hypothesis is that there are inefficiently allocating production units in terms of their inputs. The municipalities were clustered and divided into two groups to homogenize variables: Matopiba I (large-scale production, higher administrative complexity, and territorial extent) and Matopiba II (smaller-scale production, lower administrative complexity, and territorial extent). The analysis was conducted using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA-BCC) model oriented towards inputs. The data used are from the year 2017 and were sourced from the latest Agricultural Census, Municipal Agricultural Research (PAM), and the Annual Social Information Report (Rais). As a result, the evidence shows that there are municipalities in Matopiba that inefficiently allocate their inputs, leading to resource wastage. When observing the two groups, Matopiba II had the majority of municipalities with poor input allocation, but the excesses in Matopiba I were, on average, greater.