Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

The present study is focused to analyse the technical and scale efficiency of farms in overall production of crops in PeriyarVaigai irrigation system of Tamil Nadu. The input oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was applied to estimate technical, pure technical and scale efficiency of the farms. A three stage random sampling procedure was used to select 270 sample respondents. The results of the study showed that there exist potential for increasing the profit further by 43 per cent in the farm holdings by following the best-practices of efficient farms. The study also found that about 47 per cent of the farms were not operating at optimal scale or nearer to optimal scale. The findings also indicated that all the farm inputs were used excessively by the sample respondents. The findings of the study could be helpful to farming community and policy makers to undertake necessary action to improve the current level of technical and scale efficiency in the study area.
Keywords: Technical Efficiency, Scale Efficiency, Pure Technical Efficiency, Constant Return to Scale, Variable Return to Scale, Input Slack, Data Envelopment Analysis.