Citation
Burgess, T.F. and Heap, J. (2016), "Editorial", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 65 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-12-2015-0189
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 65, Issue 3.
The first paper in this issue relates to the technical efficiency of dairy farms. Many of you might look at this and think … very specific, very technical, not for me. After all, I am in (insert your sector) … why should I be interested in the efficiency of dairy farms?
Well, here is why.
First, of course, we learn lessons by transferring knowledge from one domain to another what improves the efficiency of dairy farms might help improve the performance of operations in (insert your sector again).
Second – and more important – we live in an era where the world is rapidly changing. The population of our earth is growing and has passed seven billion. That is an awful lot of mouths to feed. At the same time, more and more land is being taken out of agricultural production as the relentless rate of urbanisation continues. Coupled with this climate change is impacting and, despite the good news of the Paris accord just being agreed as we write, will have further major impact on where and how agriculture takes place.
Unless we significantly raise the performance and productivity of the entire food sector, we will be unable to feed the growing world – unfortunately we have not done a great job of it so far. If food gets scarcer, we will see more deaths and disease through starvation … and eventually, we will see wars fought over food supply and food security.
So, examining the technical efficiency of dairy farms might give us one small piece of knowledge to help in completing the "jigsaw" of global food security.
Remember, acquiring knowledge and understanding through research is rarely a wasted effort … but sometimes it transcends the here and now, the practical and the mundane … contributing to the future well-being of a particular community, or of "society", or even of mankind.
Thomas F. Burgess and John Heap