Determination efficiency of broiler units using a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) analysis method in Lorestan province (Khorramabad city)

Introduction: Evaluation of the efficiency of broier farms can better identify the position of the units and increase the awareness of policy makers and planners as well as investors in this type of activity in the agricultural sector for decision-making principles or fix the problems. Broiler breeding in Lorestan province was the growth of relatively well in terms of employment and provision of livestock products required province despite the problems caused by lack of planning, inadequate support services, uncoordinated and executive programs and relative lack of credit facilities assigned to this sector in the past two decades (DAPI of Lorestan Province, 2018). The percentage of broiler farmers in Lorestan province was 2.5% of the total country in 2017 year,. 420 broiler farmers activated ,annually with capacity of 13 million broilers in the province of Lorestan in 2017 year. In Khorramabad city, there were 129 broiler units with a capacity of 556130 broilers in 2017. This year the production of poultry meat was 12989 tons (Statistics of Agricultural Jihad, 2018). Efficiency is one of the most important tools in analyzing the production conditions of economic units. The types of efficiencies investigated include technical, allocative, economic and scale efficiency. Technical performance efficiency represents the unit's ability to achieve the maximum possible return on resources used. Efficiency analysis is used to identify opportunities for increased production and as a complement to the set of policies adopted (Farrel 1957). ccording to the studies, estimating the efficiency and identifying the causes of inefficiency of broiler farms have a great effect on yield increase and have a significant role in reducing the cost of production units and the optimal allocation of production factors. So far no comprehensive study has been conducted to calculate and evaluate the technical efficiency of poultry farms in Khorramabad city. It is necessary to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of breeding, nutrition and reproduction management of broiler farms in Khorramabad city which can be a deterrent to production. Therefore, any action in this field can lead to increased production and economic prosperity in this profession. Therefore, in this regard, the present study investigated the efficiency of these units in Khorramabad city. In this study, it was tried to evaluate the conditions of production of broiler units in Khorramabad city by applying technical efficiency and the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) method.
Material and methods: In order to investigate the management and efficiency of broiler units and production function of these units, this study was conducted at Khorramabad city in 2017 year. The data collection methods were face to face interview and questionnaires. stionnaire questions were about factors affecting production such as capital, cost of feed, one day-old chickens, health, labor force, management issues, inputs including vaccine, health, energy, bedding, labour force, feed, production and income of broiler units and etc. in this farms. The number of samples was calculated based on Cochran formula 97 broiler farms. For this purpose, to random sampling, questionnaires 97 broiler farms were completed in the city of Khorramabad. The Least Squares Restricted Fisher test, in which the Cobb-Douglas production function as Restricted model and the transendental production function as Unrestricted model, was tested as follows (Gujarati 2003). The production function determined with Cobb Douglas functions and the technical efficiency were estimated by the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) method. Cobb-Douglas frontier production function of the form used is as follows: LnYi=β0+ β1lnX1i+ β2lnX2i+ β3lnX3i+ β4lnX4i+ βlnX5i + β6lnX6i +β7lnX7i +Ui . The data on production functions and coefficients maximum likelihood method (ML) were estimated by SPSS 20 and Frontier 4.1 softwares, respectively.
Results and discussion: In terms of the cost of inputs in broier farms, the cost of feed intake (62.1%), purchase of one-day-old chicks (16.3%), fuel and electricity costs (9.7%), labor costs (4.5%), medicine and treatment (4.2%) and miscellaneous expenses (2.3%). The highest and lowest technical efficiency of broiler breeding units were 100% and 25.9%, respectively, and their average efficiency was 67.8%, which was average efficiency (Table 1). The technical efficiency of 40.2% of these units (39 units) was less than 60% (Table 2). The difference between the best production unit and the average units was 32.2%. If this difference was reduced to zero by increasing the average technical efficiency of production units, the production rate can be increased by 32.2% using existing technology and specific factors. The technical efficiency difference between the best and worst producers was about 74.1%, indicating that there was a significant difference between the broiler breeders in the province in terms of management.The highest and lowest allocative efficiency of the study population was 100% and 16.7%, respectively, and the mean was 59.4%. The range of economic efficiency changes was the best and worst productive unit (81.4%), indicating that there was a significant difference between this units in terms of economic efficiency.The results of production function showed that the variables of number of breeding chicks in year, the amount of feed intake and fuel consumption and electricity had a positive and significant effect on meat production (P<0.01). Among all variables, the amount of feed intake with a coefficient (0.472) had the greatest effect on chicken meat production. otal elasticity of production that is in fact the sum of the coefficients of the independent variables, the show returns to scale. The coefficients were statistically significant equal to one. In other words, the returns to scale are constant among the broiler farms in Khorramabad city, and the production inputs will increase by the same proportion as total production increases.
Conclusion: The results showed that most broiler farms had a low efficiency and profitability. Most of these broiler farms are vulnerable to bankruptcy due to lack of compliance with economic principles in management. In general, maintaining the relative stability of feed price, familiarizing the farmers with the principles of rationing and improving the conditions of broiler units such as nutrition management, breeding and health, is necessary to increase the efficiency and production in broiler units in Khorramabad city.