Abstract
Sheep and goat production systems in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) operate under scarce natural resource constraints. A cross-sectional survey that covered 661 mixed farms, including major sheep and goat production, was conducted in the three regions of Abu Dhabi Emirate (Al-Ain, Western Region and Abu Dhabi city) during 2012. A Cobb-Douglas, double-logarithmic stochastic frontier production function and maximum likelihood estimation were applied to estimate important economic derivatives and the associated risk of small ruminant production in this arid area. The highest impact of an input on the output level was found to be labor for raising sheep and alfalfa grass for raising goats. Both labor and alfalfa variables were found to be overutilized for sheep and goat production, respectively. Overall, the results indicate that average technical efficiency is 0.62 for raising sheep and only 0.34 for raising goats in the study area. Technical efficiency analysis included measuring the frequency of farms at each level of estimated technical efficiency in the range between zero and one. Zero for the technical efficiency coefficient indicates a lack of technical efficiency in resource use. The results of this study indicated that only 1% of the sheep farms show a technical efficiency coefficient of 0.25 or less; the same can be said for 41% of goat producers. However, these technical efficiencies were found to be more than 0.75 for 12% and 5% of the sheep and goat farms, respectively. Overall, goat farming in the UAE was found to be less efficient than sheep production. The results also indicated that flock size and type of breed were the most influential factors relative to other factors, and both show a positive relationship with technical efficiency. Other than flock size, factors, such as owners’ years of experience and management practices, were found to be more influential on goat farming system efficiency relative to sheep farming.
Highlights
The Food and Agriculture Organization [1] estimates that sheep and goat stocks in the United ArabEmirates increased from 52 thousand in 1960 to 1.5 million in 2010 for sheep and from 125 thousand in to 2 million in 2010 for goats (Figure 1)
The results indicated that flock size and type of breed were the most influential factors relative to other factors, and both show a positive relationship with technical efficiency
Survey results revealed that sheep and goat farms are 86% and 14% of all sheep and goat farms, respectively, in the Al-Ain Region, Abu-Dhabi area and the Western Region of the Abu Dhabi Emirate
Summary
The Food and Agriculture Organization [1] estimates that sheep and goat stocks in the United ArabEmirates increased from 52 thousand in 1960 to 1.5 million in 2010 for sheep and from 125 thousand in to 2 million in 2010 for goats (Figure 1). The Food and Agriculture Organization [1] estimates that sheep and goat stocks in the United Arab. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) imports more than 82% of its overall meat needs. Imports of mutton and goat meat represents 44% of the total supply in the country, leaving 56% of consumption satisfied from local production in 2009. Red-meat production, consumption, prices and trade in the UAE are currently issues of high importance to the food security policy makers in the UAE government. The UAE imports red meat from Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan and other countries to fill an increasing demand gap due to increasing per-capita national income, which has led, in turn, to increasing consumption and demand for red meat.
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