Shrimp aquaculture has been in practice in all the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh. Frequent disease outbreaks often result in widespread crop failures. Strategies are to be developed to reduce the inefficiencies in production of shrimp. This study presents the estimated technical efficiencies, obtained using data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, for extensive and semi-intensive shrimp production systems in the selected districts of Coastal Andhra. The influence of farm-specific variables on technical efficiency has also been examined. The technical inefficiency effects have been found significant in almost all cases, which suggests that irrespective of the culture systems, the selected shrimp farmers in the coastal Andhra operate below their best-practice production frontier. Farmers must be advised by the experts to adopt improved traditional culture practices for improving the efficiency of their shrimp farms.
