Estimation of Energy Efficiency and its Effective Factors in Rainfed Wheat Production in Ahar County: Application of the Stochastic Frontier Approach

Energy consumption has increased directly and indirectly in the agriculture sector to meet the needs of growing population. Regarding the scarcity of production resources including energy, the present study aimed to measure the technical efficiency of rainfed wheat farms and its effective factors. For this purpose, the required data collected from 217 farmers in Ahar county and input and output (wheat) quantities converted to energy equivalents. The results of estimating the translog stochastic frontier production function along with the inefficiency function showed that the energy factors of labor, pesticides and machinery have a significant effect on output energy of wheat. Meanwhile, factors such as distance from fields to village, land slope, number of rainfed wheat farms and the cultivated land of wheat are affective on inefficiency use of energy. The mean of energy efficiency of wheat producers was 51%. Therefore, the output energy can increase by 49 % if efficient use of input energy and principal component of field operation followed. Considering the existence of suitable methods for improving energy efficiency is recommended with increasing information of farmers, holding extension courses and applying modern technologies