Investigating technical efficiency of beach seine fishery cooperatives in Guilan Province

This study was conducted to evaluate the technical efficiency of Gilan seine fishing cooperatives. In this research, the data envelopment analysis method was used and the data of this research were collected by using a questionnaire from the cooperatives for the year 2017. The results showed that these cooperatives had about 93% technical efficiency on average. So, the cooperatives can have 7% more fishing without increasing their inputs. Also, about 46% of cooperatives are in a state of incremental returns to scale or scale economies and about 26% of cooperatives are in a state of decreasing returns to scale or scale diseconomies. In addition, this study identified the most important reference cooperatives as well as the possibility of reducing inputs for cooperatives that are not 100% efficient. In general, although the fishing cooperatives of Guilan province are in a favorable position in terms of technical efficiency, but, considering the amount of technical efficiency and returns to scale, it is better that the Fisheries Organization of Iran provide more support to cooperatives that are less efficient to become more efficient and reduce costs, and encourage more efficient and superior cooperatives.