Investigation of technical efficiency of sugar beet producers and factors affecting its reduction  A case study in Hamedan province'

The main purpose of this study was to measure the level of technical efficiency of sugar beet producers and determination of factors affecting it. A sample of 144 producers in the main sugar beet growing areas of Hamedan, Nahavand, Malayer and Asadabad were selected by two stage cluster sampling method. Data were collected through interviews during farming year of 2001-2002.Technical efficiency of sugar beet producers were estimated using Cobb-Douglas statistics frontier production functions. Also, the effects of various social and economical factors on the level of producers technical efficiency were studied. According to the results of this study, average technical efficiency for sugar beet growers of Hamedan and Malayer was estimated 0.73 and 0.70, respectively. There were much discrepancies between technical efficiency of the best sugar beet producers with that of the others. The production can be increased up to 27 and 30 percent in mentioned regions without any major change in technology and available resources, and only by decreasing the discrepancy between the best and the other producers. Age, experience and literacy of farmers, extension classes, visit of extension farms, and date of planting, planting method, seed kind and number of land units under sugar beet cultivation were the main social-economic factors affecting the technical efficiency of sugar beet producers.