NONPARAMETRIC MODEL FOR MEASURING IMPACT OF INPUTS DENSITY ON EGYPTIAN TOMATO PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY

The present study was conducted to measure the production efficiency of tomatoes in Ismailia, Egypt, adopting Data Envelopment analysis (DEA) procedures. Fifty eight of tomato farms had been surveyed in Ismailia governorate for the season July to October 2013. DEA was adopted to estimate technical, allocative, cost, and scale efficiency scores for the surveyed farms. A two limited Tobit regression analysis was used to estimate the impact of inputs overuse on efficiency measures. The analysis revealed that the estimated mean of the technical efficiency was 91 percent indicating that the total output can be further increased with efficient use of resources and technology. The results of allocative, cost, and scale efficiency measures showed substantial degree of inefficiency. The inefficiency can be attributed to overuse of land, seedlings, manure nitrogen fertilizers, potassium fertilizers, and labor. Most of scale inefficiency (about 76%) arisen from farms revealing increased returns to scale implying that most of the farms operate at sub-optimal level. Therefore, recommendations issued by agricultural extension agency in Egypt need to be revised in the light of efficiency measures rather Than production maximization.