Data envelopment analysis to estimate technical and scale efficiency of irrigated and dry farms in Salem district of Tamil Nadu

Abstract

The study is focused to analyse the technical and scale efficiency of irrigated and dry farms in overall production of crops in Salem District of Tamil Nadu. The input oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was applied to estimate technical, pure technical and scale efficiency of the farms. A random sampling procedure was used to select 180 sample respondents. The Data Envelopment Analysis was used to examine the technical and scale efficiency of different crop enterprises under irrigated and dry farm situations. The study revealed that the technical inefficiency was less in irrigated farms than in dry farms. Similarly the scale inefficiency was found high in dry farms than in irrigated farms. Even though differences exist in mean technical and scale efficiency among dry and irrigated farms. The findings of the study could be helpful to farming community and policy makers to undertake necessary action to improve the current level of technical and scale efficiency in the study area.