| In December 2009 the Irish Department of Agriculture launched the Dairy Efficiency Programme. The Programme, which is operated through a series of discussion groups, is designed to promote technology transfer to dairy farmers. Drawing on National Farm Survey data from 2009, the purpose of this paper is to quantify the economic return to membership of dairy discussion groups. An endogenous switching regression model is specified for over 300 dairy farms to assess the impact of discussion group participation on farm gross margins. The results indicate self-selection into discussion groups, suggesting that „better‟ farmers tend to participate. Generally, younger farmers who operate larger farms are more likely to join discussion groups. Discussion group... |
