1MSC Student, Department of Agricultural Mechanization Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.
2Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Machinery Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.
3Professor, Department of Agricultural Machinery Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.
Energy ratio and technical efficiency are the ways to explain the efficiency of farmers. This study was conducted to determine the energy use efficiency for com silage production in Iran. For this purpose, data were collected from farmers by using a face to face questionnaire. Energy indices, technical, pure technical and scale efficiencies were calculated by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique for three groups of farms «5ha, between 5 and 10ha and>1Oha). The results revealed that the highest energy ratio (2.8) and least specific energy (2.9MJkg−1) belonged to large farms. Total energy input and output were calculated as 68928 and 148380MJha−1, respectively, whereas machinery with a share of 42% was the highest consumer followed. The average value of TE, PTE and SE was 0.92, 0.98 and 0.93, respectively. It was specified that medium and large farms scored highest TE and SE. The contribution of saving energy for machinery was the highest and followed by chemical fertilizer and diesel fuel with shares of 39.41%, 28.48% and 16.43% respectively. The total energy savings calculated to be 40% of total input energy. The Karl Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) revealed that 81% and 79% of farmers were efficient under CCR and BCC.
Com silage, Energy use, Energy ratio, Technical efficiency, Data envelopment analysis, Scale efficiency
