Department of Agricultural Machinery Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran. Email: mr.mobtaker@yahoo.com
In this study a non-parametric method of data envelopment analysis (DEA) was applied to analyze the cost efficiency of farmers, in order to optimize the input costs for barley production in Hamedan province of Iran. Data were collected using face-to-face questionnaire from 67 farms in central region of Hamedan province. The DEA method was used based on seven input costs including human labour, land rent, seed, water for irrigation, fertilizers, biocide and machinery and single output of barley yield. The technical, pure technical and scale efficiencies of farmers were calculated as 0.812, 0.970 and 0.834, respectively. Total optimum cost requirement was found to be about 879 $ ha-1; showing that 10.09% of input costs could be saved if the farmers follow the results recommended by this study. Moreover the contribution of water for irrigation input from total cost saving was 63.77% which was the highest share followed by chemical fertilizers and machinery input costs. Optimization of input costs use improved the benefit/cost ratio, productivity and net return by 11.61%, 11.27% and 10.25%, respectively.
Data envelopment analysis, Optimization, Cost saving, Technical efficiency, Barley
