Optimization of energy consumption for sunflower production using data envelopment analysis approach

Aim: To determine the energy efficiency of farmers, to find efficient and inefficient ones and to identify the wasteful use of energy in sunflower production. Moreover, the degrees of technical and scale efficiency of producers were investigated. Methodology: Data used in this study were collected using face-to-face surveys from 113 sunflower farms in Aksaray in Central Anatolian Region, one of the most important center of sunflower production in Turkey. Data Envelopment Analysis approach was used to analyze the energy efficiency of farmers Results: The average yield and energy consumption for sunflower production was 2124.4 kg ha(-1) and 13517.45 MJ ha(-1), respectively. In addition, the results of DEA application showed that the technical, pure technical and scale efficiencies of farmers were 0.82, 0.97 and 0.84, respectively. Interpretation: Energy saving target ratio for sunflower production was calculated as 4.18%, indicating that by following the recommendations resulted from this study, about 564,54 MJ ha(-1) of total input energy could be saved while holding the constant level of sunflower yield. Also, the highest contribution to total energy saving was made by chemical fertilizers with 42.58% of total saving, followed by diesel fuel (20.13%), machinery (19.33%) and chemicals (13.74%).