Technical Efficiency of Traditional Livestock Husbandry and Effective Factors in Mountain Rangelands of Northern Iran

Measurement of Technical Efficiency (TE) provides useful information on the competitiveness of Rangeland Unit (RU) and potential to improve productivity, with the existing resources. So, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the technical efficiency of Traditional Livestock Husbandry (TLH) and determine the main factors influencing it via management variables of Range Management Plans (RMP) and demographic variables of ranchers (age, education, herd size) in the semi-arid rangelands of Northern Iran. To do this, the study employs a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) via parametric stochastic frontier analysis. This technique creates efficiency indices by comparing the performance of traditional livestock husbandry. The random sampling method was used to collect data via a survey questionnaire from 82 semi-nomad ranchers in 2018 – 2019. Results show that the average value of scale efficiency (SE) was 0.78; technical efficiency (TE) at Constant Returns to Scale (TECRS) and Variable Returns to Scale (TEVRS) level were calculated 0.54 and 0.69, respectively. Also, implementing RMP in some RUs could improve SE level by 0.81. Over 62.2% of animal units show increasing returns to scale and about a quarter to a fifth of the animal units were in the area of risk-reducing returns which indicates the need to reduce the scale to improve efficiency. Therefore; a significant part of technical efficiency is related to the SE and in the current research, implementing RMP in rangeland units improved the SE up to 81%. This ratio of RMP-in was less than RMP-out which showed the need to increase returns to scale to improve efficiency. About 10% of animal units in implementing RMPs allocated to perfectly efficient and so-called are on the boundary function. The Tobit regression results indicated that education, experience, livestock breed and implantation of RMP significantly affected the efficiency. Policies are thus needed to improve the mentioned above factors to sustain the efficiency of RUs that diversify the rancher’s economy.