Greenhouse strawberry production in Iran, efficient or inefficient in energy

Abstract

This paper attempts to identify origins of inefficient used resource for greenhouse strawberry production in Tehran. A nonparametric method, data envelopment analysis (DEA), was used to study the technical efficiency of producers with regard to effective energy utilization on strawberry yield. Data for the production of strawberries were collected from 25 greenhouses by using a face-to-face questionnaire method. Both constant and variable returns to scale DEA models were used to evaluate and rank technical efficiency of greenhouses based on four energy inputs: fertilizer, human labor, diesel fuel, and electricity. Pure technical efficiency specification shows that 10 greenhouses are producing at an efficient scale. The study has also helped to segregate efficient greenhouses from inefficient ones to get insights into the performance of individual producers, to identify wasteful uses of energy, and to suggest reasonable savings in energy uses from different sources. The results reveal that, on an average, about 16% of the total input energy could be saved if the producers follow the input package recommended by the study. The results of analysis show that DEA is a pivotal tool for analyzing productive efficiency of agricultural units.