Determination of efficient and inefficient greenhouse cucumber producers using Data Envelopment Analysis approach, a case study: Jiroft city in Iran

The aims of this study were to determine energy use pattern, to investigate the energy use efficiency using DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) methodology to discriminate efficient farmers from inefficient ones and to identify wasteful uses of energy in order to optimize the energy inputs in greenhouse cucumber production in Jiroft city of Iran. Data were obtained from 60 greenhouse cucumber farmers using a face to face questionnaire method. The results indicated that greenhouse cucumber production consumed a total energy of 306,117.57 MJ ha−1 from which 58.5% was provided by diesel fuel. Energy use efficiency, energy productivity and net energy were found to be 0.51, 0.64 kg MJ−1 and −149317.57 MJ ha−1, respectively. DEA models, indicated that 26.7% and 73.3% of farmers were found to be technically and pure technically efficient, respectively. The average technical, pure technical and scale efficiency scores of farmers were calculated as 0.87, 0.99 and 0.88, respectively. Optimum energy requirement was found to be 288,168.59 MJ ha−1, indicating that 11% of total energy input could be saved if the recommendations of this study are followed. A possible suggestion that can be drawn from this study is that future agricultural policies could include measures to improve the capacity of producers to apply the available technology more efficiently. This can be implemented by improving the ease of access to extension services, or trying to raise the educational level of producers. The GHG emissions were indicated a high CO2 output in diesel fuel consumption.