Evaluation of the effect of national plan implemention of increasing rice production on technical efficiency of paddy farms (A case study: Pirbazar region of Rasht city)

The main purpose of the present study is to evaluate and compare technical efficiency of two groups of paddy farms, under the national plan of increasing rice production and conventional farms in Pirbazar region of Rasht city, Iran, during 2013-2014. The studied inputs in this research included seeds, labor force, fertilizers, pesticides, machinery and acreage and output was the produced rice of each farm. In this regard, data envelopment analysis (DEA) and random sampling method were used. The results revealed that the average levels of technical efficiency for farms under the mentioned national plan for two models of assuming constant returns to scale (CCR) and variable return to scale (BCC) were 99.2% and 99.6%, respectively, while the average levels of technical efficiency for conventional farms at the region considering CCR and BCC were 97.1% and 97.6%, respectively. The results also showed that the most important reason for higher performance and lower production costs in the farms under the mentioned national plan is the different use of inputs. The findings of this research can have positive effects on government’s planning in agricultural sector especially for strategic product of rice, as well as provides proper background for similar and complimentary researches on rice.