Improvement of cost efficiency in strawberry greenhouses by data envelopment analysis
2011
Banaeian, N., University of Tehran, Karaj (Iran Islamic Republic). Dept. of Agricultural Machinery Engineering | Omid, M., University of Tehran, Karaj (Iran Islamic Republic). Dept. of Agricultural Machinery Engineering | Ahmadi, H., University of Tehran, Karaj (Iran Islamic Republic). Dept. of Agricultural Machinery Engineering
The aim of this study was to investigate the technical and scale efficiency of Iranian greenhouse strawberry production using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique. This research was focused on comparing and optimizing the performance of greenhouses. Data were collected using face to face questionnaires from personnel of 25 greenhouses. Analyzes were based on the amount of four important inputs: human labour (h/ha), fertilizers (kg/ha), capital (USD/ha) and other expenses (USD/ha) as input, and gross return of produced strawberries (USD/ha) as output. According to the average technical (0.73) and pure technical (0.96) efficiency, there is a suitable potential for more efficient and sustainable input utilization in production. Our comparison between the present and target amount of inputs demonstrated that if greenhouse holders follow some recommendations and use the projected amount of inputs, they can save 45,716.65 USD/ha. Our analyses showed that fertilizer inputs were the most costly inputs and that improving management practices may save 29% of these costs.
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