Abstract
This study’s main objective was to estimate sea bass farms’ technical efficiency and determine the factors affecting production inefficiency using the stochastic frontier approach. The data were collected using questionnaires from 71 farms in 2017. The total sea bass production cost was calculated 5.35 $ kg-1, income 5.65 $ kg-1, gross profit 0.30 $ kg-1. The proportion of variable costs (84.25%) in total costs was higher than the fixed costs (15.75%). The feed cost (57.56%) was the influential primary variable on the total costs, and the benefit-cost ratio was 1.06. The results indicated that seabass farms’ technical efficiency varied between 0.67 to 1.00, and the average was 0.82. The efficiency scores meant the farms could achieve the same production amount by reducing inputs by 18%. One per cent increase in resale value, feed amount, and fingerling amount, increase sea bass production by 0.4%, 0.4%, and 0.2%, respectively. Fish loss rates and subsidies were influential on inefficiency. It would be beneficial to minimize risk factors such as fish loss rates and carry out political and educational activities to improve farms’ infrastructure in breeding and marketing. As a result, policymakers should also include the effective use of production factors in the design of aquaculture subsidy policies.
Highlights
The aquaculture sector has been developing rapidly globally and constitutes about half of all fish consumed for food purposes (Hishamunda et al, 2009)
The research results indicated that sea bass farming is a profitable economic activity in Turkey
One of the crucial factors affecting the continuity of sea bass farming is that most of the feed raw materials used in fish feed production are imported
Summary
The aquaculture sector has been developing rapidly globally and constitutes about half of all fish consumed for food purposes (Hishamunda et al, 2009). The share of sea bass production constitutes 38.0% of the amount of Turkey’s total farmed fish production. Turkey’s aquaculture sector faces several challenges such as the need for skilled labour, price fluctuations, low quality of feeds, marketing problems, lack of water supply, and working with low capacity (Aydoğan et al, 2020). One of the most crucial challenges in sea bass farming is that most feed raw materials (more than 80%) used in fish feed production are imported (Keleştemur and Uslu, 2017). When considering the economic importance of aquaculture in Turkey, there is a need to ensure that aquaculture farms use limited resources effectively in their production. The concept of production efficiency explains the effective use of production factors (Farrell, 1957)
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