Title: Improving efficiency of farming products through benchmarking and data envelopment analysis

Authors: Alireza Khoshroo; Mohammad Izadikhah

Addresses: Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Yasouj University, Yasouj, Iran ' Department of Mathematics, College of Science, Islamic Azad University, Arak Branch, Arak, Iran

Abstract: Efficient use of energy is an important pathway in reducing the carbon footprint of crop production as well as improving agricultural sustainability. This study is concerned with the performance assessment of watermelon farms, on both aspects of productive efficiency and energy efficiency to recognise the efficient/inefficient watermelon farms and find the sources of inefficiency. In this regard, the range adjusted measure, a non-radial DEA-based efficiency model, is applied to investigate the efficiency of watermelon production in 18 provinces of Iran during 2013-2014. Energy inputs consist of human labour, machinery, fertilisers and biocides. The model output is the total production value of watermelon. Average scores of overall technical efficiency and energy efficiency are 0.83 and 0.85, respectively. The target inputs and outputs for each province are calculated, and the benchmark farm for each DMU is determined. Finally, the returns to scale status and scale economies score for each province are evaluated.

Keywords: range adjusted measure; returns to scale; RTS; scale economies; SE; benchmarking; watermelon; energy efficiency.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMDM.2019.096691

International Journal of Management and Decision Making, 2019 Vol.18 No.1, pp.15 - 30

Received: 27 Oct 2017
Accepted: 12 Mar 2018
Published online: 07 Dec 2018 *

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