Exploring the geographical heterogeneity in production efficiency and metatechnology ratio of farms producing apple

Abstract

The factors that cause ineffective use of the resources allocated to apple production and the regional distribution of these factors are among the research questions still waiting to be answered. In order to reduce this information gap, in this study, the efficiency of apple farms was measured and compared at the regional level by considering Isparta, Karaman, and Niğde provinces that constitute 45.8% of the total apple production in Turkey. Data acquired by interviewing from 175 farms selected with the stratified random sampling method constituted the primary material of study. The stochastic metafrontier approach was used for comparing interregional efficiency. Stochastic metafrontier results revealed that the metatechnology ratio was 79.7% in Isparta province, 75.9% in Karaman province, and 48.7% in Niğde province. According to metatechnology ratio results, the production frontier of apple farms in Isparta province is closer to metafrontier than the provinces of Karaman and Niğde. Giving importance to producer training, scientific studies, extension, and infrastructure studies will increase farms’ efficiency. Besides, researcher-extension workers-farmers relations should be kept mutually strong.