Impact of Energy Subsidies Elimination on Technology Gap Ratio in Cucumber Production

Subject Areas : Farm Management

رضا اسفنجاری کناری ^{1 *} , زهره کرمی ² , سیده صدیقه احمدزاده ³

1 - استادیار گروه اقتصاد کشاورزی دانشکده کشاورزی دانشگاه گیلان
2 - کارشناسی ارشد اقتصاد کشاورزی دانشگاه شیراز
3 - دانشجوی دکتری اقتصاد کشاورزی، دانشگاه علوم کشاورزی و منابع طبیعی ساری

Received: 2016-09-05 Accepted : 2017-01-01 Published : 2017-06-01

Keywords: stochastic frontier analysis, Fars, Metafrontier, translog function,

Abstract :

This paper presents an analysis of technical efficiency andtechnology gap ratio (TGR) in greenhouse cucumber inFars Province, Iran. Cucumber production was chosen for thisstudy for the reason that greenhouse productions in this provincemainly have focused on this product. The data used in thisstudy was obtained from a random sample of 127 greenhouses in Fars Province for 2010 to 2011. Metafrontier productionfunction model for firms was used within the parametric frameworkof stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). The frontier modelsare applied in the analysis of cross-sectional data by assuminga translog functional form. Results indicate that eliminatingenergy input subsidies has led to significant decrease in greenhousecucumber production efficiency so that the mean technicalefficiency declined from 98% to 67 % during 2010-2011. Furthermore,subsidies elimination has also led to decrease of themean technology gap ratio in greenhouses from 0.92 to 0.87,in other words, it has caused more distance from efficient productionfrontier.