ENERGY USE EFFICIENCY IN WHEAT PRODUCTION, A CASE STUDY OF PAUNJAB PAKISTAN

This study deals with, the estimation of energy consumption, energy flow and energy efficiency in wheat production of Pakistan. A cross sectional data of 200 wheat growers were collected followed by multistage sampling. Results depicted the overall energy consumption of 29787.0 MJ h(-1) in wheat production with an average yield of 3643.3 kg ha(-1). Energy efficiency, specific energy, energy productivity and net energy gain were 1.59, 8.18 MJ kg(-1), 0.12 kg MJ(-1) and 17575.23 MJ ha(-1) respectively. Furthermore, Data envelopment analysis approach has been employed for technical efficiency assessment. Fertilizer, diesel fuel and electricity, were the main energy inputs to wheat production, contributing 83% of total input energy. Therefore, for DEA input database, we considered these three inputs (fertilizer, diesel fuel and electricity) as input and yield (kg ha(-1) as output. Findings revealed that the average technical efficiency score was 73 %, with a plausible potential of energy saving from 1726.06 to 17013.99 MT ha(-1).