Evaluating technical efficiency of hair goat farms in Turkey: the case of Mersin Province
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Evaluating technical efficiency of hair goat farms in Turkey: the case of Mersin Province Emine İkikat Tümer 1 & Hasan Burak Ağır 1
&
İlknur Aydoğan 2
Received: 13 May 2020 / Accepted: 24 September 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This study aims to determine the efficiency levels of hair goat farms and to investigate the effect of socio-economic factors on efficiency. The data were collected from 110 hair goat farmers operating in Mersin province of Turkey, in the year 2019. An input-oriented data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to estimate technical efficiency scores and Tobit regression was employed to determine effective factors on technical efficiency. DEA results showed under the constant and variable returns to scale assumptions that the mean efficiency scores were estimated as 0.67 and 0.76, respectively. The present results indicated that farmers were overusing inputs and they can reduce the inputs by 33% and 24% in order to produce the same level of output. The results further show that farmers’ education (p < 0.05), the number of goats (p < 0.01), income (p < 0.05) and cooperative membership (p < 0.10) are statistically significant factors influencing the technical efficiency of hair goat farms. Technical efficiency of farms should be improved by focusing on the education and extension services for optimum input use, adopting new technologies by encouraging farmers to join cooperatives. Keywords Hair goat . Technical efficiency . Data envelopment analysis . Turkey
Introduction Livestock production plays a significant role in rural and economic development due to providing balanced and healthy nutrition, preventing migration from rural areas, and creating new employment opportunities for industrial and service sectors (Gül et al. 2016). Small ruminant breeding as a sub-branch of animal production is more preferred compared with the production of other animal species because of its ease in terms of maintenance, hosting, and feeding. Besides, it can also be performed in low-quality pastures and arid areas that are not
* Hasan Burak Ağır [email protected]; [email protected] Emine İkikat Tümer [email protected] İlknur Aydoğan [email protected] 1
Agricultural Faculty, Department of Agricultural Economics, Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey
2
Mersin Directorate of Provincial Agriculture and Forestry, Mersin, Turkey
appropriate for plant production. Also, changes in the eating habits of individuals (Smith et al. 1982) and the use of raw materials such as meat, milk, skin, and hair in agro-industries increase the importance of goat breeding. Goat breeding is mostly done in the Mediterranean region and Middle East countries located in the mild climate zone (Paksoy and Özçelik 2008) and constitutes 46.24% of the world’s small ruminant assets (FAO 2019). Due to its geographical location and climatic conditions, Turkey is appropriate for goat breeding and it is an important livelihood for people living in rural areas. In the year
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