Investigating the efficiency of onion producers in the provinces of Iran

The growth and productivity of agricultural production require improving and increasing the efficiency of farmers in order to optimally use vital inputs such as land and water. In this regard, increasing the yield of crops depends on improving production efficiency. The aim of this research is to estimate the technical, pure technical, and scale efficiencies for onion growers in the producing provinces of this product using two DEA and IDEA and analyzing the obtained efficiencies. In this research, the average price of renting a hectare of agricultural land, the average price of pesticide, the average price of buying a cubic meter of agricultural water, the average wage of the labor working in the agricultural sector, the average cost of renting machinery and the average price of buying chemical fertilizer for each The province was used. Also, the average gross profit of the onion crop per hectare for each province was studied as data. All the data used in this study were obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad for 2017-2018. This shows the efficiency of these units (only) at the upper limit of the cost of inputs and the gross profit of outputs. Also, the results showed that the largest amount of difference between the average target amount and the actual amount of input consumption cost is related to the four inputs of pesticide, irrigation water, land, and labor. Therefore, in some cases, there are non-negligible differences between the two classic DEA and IDEA. There is a potential for the provinces to achieve optimal allocation of production factors. Therefore, proper planning and management of production inputs with a priority on the most inefficient inputs (pesticides, water, land, and labor) are necessary. In general, adopting any policy that leads to the optimal allocation and efficient use of these production inputs; can reduce the cost of these inputs in ineffective provinces.