Investigating the Efficiency of Rice Producers in Sari Goharbaran Accounting for Uncertainty

Given the importance of optimizing the use of production factors in order to increase the agricultural production, this study used data envelopment analysis (DEA) model with statistical tolerance in the data to estimate efficiency scores for paddy rice farmers of Goharbaran region of Sari County of Iran in an uncertainty situation. For this purpose, 16 combinations were considered based on the amount of input and output in favorable and unfavorable situations and accordingly, the efficiency scores were analyzed. Required data were collected by questionnaires through interviews with 196 rice producers in the region. The study results showed that average efficiencies in four scenarios including original, optimistic, pessimistic and mean efficiency scores of 16 combinations with tolerance were 0.65, 0.85, 0.53 and 0.76, respectively; and the difference between the results of original and other scenarios showed the importance of consideration of uncertainty in the data. Also, the results showed that more than 87 percent of the farmers were not efficient even in optimistic situation. Therefore, given the fact that the majority of representative farmers had low efficiency scores, it is critical to investigate the causes of the inefficiencies and implement appropriate policies to enhance the farmers' performance. Finally, a number of solutions were suggested as the effective efforts to improve the farmers' efficiency, which included among others, training the farmers to increase their performance as well as optimal use of agricultural lands.