Measuring the Technical and Economic Efficiencies of Citrus Productionin Latakia, Syria

Abstract:

The study was conducted to evaluate the technical and economic efficiencies of citrus production in Latakia Governorateby using Data Envelopment Analysis through a personal interview with 381 farmers forthe growing season 2017-2018.It included a number of variables such as organic, nitrogenous and phosphate fertilizers, irrigation water, and labor. Theoutputs were production and application of anoutput-oriented linear programming model that assumes the variable return to scalefor estimating the economic efficiency of production and costs function. It was found that the average technical efficiency at constantreturn to scale was 65.5% vs. 80.2%forvariablereturn to scale and 83.6% for scale efficiency. The results showed that the average allocative and economic efficiencies for citrus growerswere 37.6% and 30.4%, respectively. Farmers in the second landholding category (1-2ha) were the highestin achieving scale and technical efficienciesby using the optimal combination of inputs, but they were less interested in the purchase price of inputs and thus increased the waste of money, resulting in lower economic efficiency. Therefore, the study recommends intensified training courses for farmers on using optimal quantities of production inputs to achieve the best technical efficiency, as well as combining smallholdings of the first category and reducing the cultivated area in the third category to achieve the efficiency of the optimal scale of farm, as well as the need to increase farmers' interest in inputs price for reducingmoney waste, coinciding with government agencies' study of the reasons for rising prices of inputs and thus to ensure the creation of appropriate solutions to reduce or subsidize prices.