Investigating the Technical Efficiency of Date Palm Cultivation Using the Data Envelopment Analysis

Khuzestan Province, especially Karun County, is one of the main pillars of date production in Iran. According to the limitations of date palm production in this county, optimal production management, and the efficient use of production inputs are required. The main goal of this study was to calculate the technical efficiency of date palm cultivators’ management in the whole Karun, as well as the cities in this County including four cities, using a nonparametric approach such as the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. 200 date palm cultivators were selected as samples across the region, 50 date palm cultivators from each city in April 2017 till February 2018. The results showed that Rabie and Shirin-Shahr cities have the most efficient and non-efficient date palm cultivators’ management, respectively. The average efficiency under constant returns to scale assumption was 100 percent, the variable returns to scale input-oriented and output-oriented in Rabie city were 100 and 100 percent, and in Shirin-Shahr city, the average efficiency under constant returns to scale was 97.56 percent, the variable returns to scale input-oriented and output-oriented were 98.69 and 98.04 percent, respectively. In Karun County, the average efficiency under constant returns to scale was 96.62 percent, the variable returns to scale input-oriented and output-oriented efficiencies were 98.66 and 97.57 percent, respectively. In this region, cultivators’ management efficiency can be increased by increasing the awareness and skills of date palm cultivators and educating them in terms of optimal use of inputs.