Management of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions using the optimal farm scale: Evidence from wheat production in South Khorasan Province

The need for sustainable resource management is increasingly urgent. A prerequisite for achieving sustainable agriculture is the use of production resources more efficiently. In this study, by combining Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) using environmental and economic indices, the effect of optimal farm scale on the improvement of these indices was investigated. Data were obtained from 136 farmers using a questionnaire and face-to-face interviews. The mean technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency were estimated to be 0.76, 0.89 and 0.85; respectively, while the benefit-to-cost ratio was found to be 1.22. Results indicated that if the resources were used efficiently on an optimum scale, the emission and energy use could be reduced to 976.33 kg CO2eq ha-1 and 15391 MJ ha-1. 37.73 % of the energy savings, respectively. Also, 35.6% of greenhouse gas emission reductions were related to the optimal farm scale. Furthermore, the contribution of the optimal scale in improving the benefit-to-cost ratio and energy use efficiency was found to be 12.5 and 16.23%, respectively. The results showed that the optimum scale of agricultural activities was a crucial factor in saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in wheat production in eastern Iran. Therefore, as local farms in the studied region mostly were small-scale, fragmented and scattered, land integration and promotion of activities at the optimal production scale are recommended as important steps in reducing environmental side-effects and increasing farmers’ profitability.