Determination of Economic Efficiency and Offering the Suitable model for Broiler farms of Gilan Province

Efficiency is a concept that determines the input and output ratios of an economic system. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method is a useful tool for estimating the efficiency of a unit. The purpose of this study was estimation of economic efficiency and determining of return to scale of broiler production units in Gilan province. Therefore, the information includes the day old chick price, the cost of manpower, the cost of feed, the cost of health and treatment, the cost of fuel (gas, gasoline and electricity) of thirty commercial broiler production units in Gilan province collected and the efficiency was measured based on production and economical function. Then, the technical and allocative efficiency was estimated to calculate the economic efficiency. Based on these results, based on costs minimization, the average of technical, allocative and economic efficiency in constant returns to scale condition was 96.7, 91.8 and 88.7 percent, respectively and in variable returns to scale condition was 97.5, 94.0 and 91.6 percent, respectively. Also, the average of scale efficiency was 99.2 percent. According to results of DEA method, it is recommended the farms with capacities of 5000 to 30000 chicken, the 25 days interval among production cycles, and the proposed models should be used to increase the efficiency of commercial broiler production units in Gilan.