Technical Efficiency of Rice Farmers in Telangana, India: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)

It is known that inability of the farmers to exploit the available production technologies results in lower efficiencies of production. So, the measurement of technical efficiency in agricultural crops in developing countries like India gained renewed attention since the late 1980s from an increasing number of researchers. Accordingly, the present study has employed Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist Total Factor Productivity Index to ascertain the Technical Efficiency of rice productivity (2021-2022) and its changes over the study period (2019-2020 to 2021- 2022) respectively in Telangana, India. This study was based on secondary data pertaining to rice productivity (output variable), fertilizer doses (NPK), seed rate, water applied and organic manure (input variables). The findings of Data Envelopment Analysis revealed that the overall mean technical efficiency score across all the Decision-Making Units was 0.860 ranged between 0.592 to 1.000. So, the Decision-Making Units, on an average, could reduce their input usage by 14 per cent and still could produce the same level of rice output. Further, fertilizers (60.54 kg/ha); seed (5.63 kg/ha); water (234.48 mm) and organic manure (3.76 t/ha) use can be reduced without affecting the current level of rice productivity. Malmquist Total Factor Productivity indices (2019-2020 to 2021-2022) revealed that the mean scores of technical efficiency change, pure technical efficiency change and scale efficiency change are more than one (1.153, 1.042 and 1.009 respectively), unlike technological change (0.983). All the Decision-Making Units showed impressive progress with reference to technical efficiency change (1.112) and it is the sole contributor for Total Factor Productivity change in rice cultivation. The DEA results suggest that farmers should be informed about the use of inputs as per the scientific recommendations to boost the technical efficiency of rice productivity in Telangana. It also calls for policy initiatives for distribution of quality inputs to the farmers to boost technical efficiency in rice production