DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS (DEA) APPROACH FOR ASSESSING TECHNICAL, ECONOMIC AND SCALE EFFICIENCY OF BROILER FARMS

Abstract

This study was surveyed and evaluated technical, economic and scale efficiency of broiler farms in Egypt using DEA technique. So as to accomplish the specified aim, stratified random sampling technique was utilized to gather information from 150 broiler farms. The results showed that mean technical efficiencies of broiler farms were 0.915 and 0.985 under constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable returns to scale (VRS) respectively, implying that on average the farms could reduce input utilization by 8.5% and 1.5% for production level of output to be technically efficient. Notably, 48.7% of the farms were estimated fully technical efficient under VRS-model. The mean allocative and economic efficiency of the farms were assessed as 0.941 and 0.918 respectively, with only 2% of the farms were fully allocative and economic efficient. Furthermore, the average scale efficiency was 0.929 with the majority of broiler farms (82%) were operating with increasing returns to scale. The estimated Tobit regression showed that farmer's age, education, experience, access to extension services, and level of training were the most significant variables contributing to the disparities in efficiency of broiler farms. Such results are useful for extension workers and policy makers so as to guide policies towards expanding efficiency.