The Effects of Conservation Tillage on Technical Efficiency of Wheat Growers in Dezful County

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of adoption conservation tillage technology on the incidence and probability of technical efficiency.

To achieve the research goal, Heckman two-step model was used. The applied cross sectional data cover the growing season of 2015-16. the data were collected through completing questionnaires from a sample of 168 wheat growers in Dezful county who were selected by multistage random cluster sampling method.

The results of financial analysis showed that conservation tillage increases yield and gross profit per hectare by 20.22% and 21.44%, respectively compared to conventional tillage proceders. The average technical efficiency of the selected farmers is 0.78. Also, the results indicated that in terms of production and management technology, the technical efficiency difference between the most efficient and inefficient producer is 0.43. Furthermore, It is found that technology adoption of conservation tillage, ratio of available cultivation machines of conservation tillage in each village, growing experience water use and education level have significant effects and Labor and distance from village variables have negative and significant effect on technical efficiency of farmers. The conservation tillage adoption with a marginal effect of 0.48 showed the highest effect on the technical efficiency. The results also showed that farmers who use conservation tillage technologies are expected to be more efficient by 0.35, on average.

Adoption of conservation tillage technology and providing the relevant machines will increase the possibility higher technical efficiency. Regarding that conservation tillage is more beneficial compared to the conventional one and that there is a positive and significant relationship between adoption of conservation tillage and technical efficiency of wheat growers, farmers should be encouraged to adopt conservative technology through enhancing farmers' knowledge and awareness of the benefits of conservation method and increasing the provision of facilities to farmers.