Determining the Efficiency and Inefficiency Intervals of Crop Production in Iran

In this study, using the classic and developed models of data envelopment analysis, the frontiers of efficiency and inefficiency were determined for 29 irrigated crops and the relative position of products was determined in terms of gross income and gross profit efficiencies. Research data included cost of inputs used in the preparation, planting, growing and harvesting stages along with income and profitability data for the crop year of 2014-15, which was extracted from the reports of Ministry of Agricultural Jihad.
The results showed that in the input-oriented approach for gross income, the efficiency ranged from 0.2698 to 0.8660. On average, at best, 12.4% and in the worst situation, 73.2% of inputs were overused to generate gross income. The worst rank devotes to barley in the optimistic scenario and to potato in the pessimistic scenario. For the gross profit, the average efficiency score in optimistic and pessimistic scenarios were 0.6353 and 0.1997, respectively, and minimum and maximum scores belonged to barley and potato, respectively. In the output-oriented approach, the average inefficiency for gross income was between 0.2805 and 0.8698, which indicated a possible reduction of income by 71.95% and 13.22%, respectively. In the case of gross profit, optimistic and pessimistic efficiencies were 18.15% and 55.4%, respectively. According to the findings, barley had the maximum inefficiency in all models.