Assessing the energy consumption efficiency of different long grain rice varieties in Golestan province

The aim of this study was to analyze the inputs consumption, outputs production and to evaluate the technical efficiency of each of the farmers using data envelopment analysis method in rice fields of the Golestan province, Iran, in 2013. Data were collected through interviews and questionnaires with 173 paddy farmers of Golestan using simple randomized sampling method. The inputs were labor, machinery, diesel fuel, seed, irrigation, chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, organic fertilizer and electricity. The results showed that total energy consumption in the rice fiels for production of paddy was 99060.1 MJ/ha, so that total input energy to the rice fields for production of high-yielding long grain rice and high-grade long grain rice were determined 108392.1 and 89835.3 MJ/ha, respectively. Diesel fuel with 38.7% of the total input energy to paddy fields was the most energy consumed in the production of rice. After diesel fuel, electricity and machines accounted for 29.3% and 19.2% of the total input energy in production of rice, respectively. Average technical efficiency of the farmers producing high-grade long grain rice and high-yielding long grain rice based on the input-oriented approach and variable returns to scale in the data envelopment analysis was 0.95 and 0.94, respectively. The results from the energy optimization in this research showed that about 14% of the total input energy can be stored in the production of high-grade long grain rice, as well as 18.16% of the total input energy in the production of high-yielding long grain rice without any reduction in performance. Electricity energy input was also the largest portion of total stored energy.