Efficiency modeling, an important factor in the development of sheep and goat production in a semiarid region / Modelagem da eficiência, fator importante para o desenvolvimento da ovinocaprinocultura, dos produtores do Semiáridoc

Abstract

The paper aims to use the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to evaluate the performance of sheep and goat production systems in the semi-arid region in Brazil. By applying a questionnaire with 127 variables, we obtained information from 254 producers in the municipality of Tauá - CE, with the input variables number of sheep and number of cattle, and the output variable of revenues from animal production. The DEA model with constant returns to scale (RCE) and variable returns to scale (RVE) and were used. The average technical efficiency measures of RCE and RVE models were 9.72% and 23.65% for all farmers. Only two and eight producers obtained efficiency equal to one (maximum) in RCE and RVE, respectively. Most producers operate in terms of increasing returns, and are inefficient. That is, the vast majority of producers are working below the optimum scale, which leads to the exclusion of producers.