Impacts of technological change on energy use efficiency and GHG mitigation of pomegranate: Application of dynamic data envelopment analysis models

Greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation in agriculture should be approached, among others, through changes in farm management and technology use. The application of new GHG mitigation technologies are essential to promote a cleaner environment. This is critical since not all new technologies are environmentally friendly. To understand whether and to what extent such technologies mitigate GHG, this survey study was conducted to measure the amount of the dynamic energy consumption and productivity growth of pomegranate production during 2009-2015 in the Fars province, Southwest Iran. Dynamic DEA models were employed for the efficiency analyses. The data were gathered from pomegranate gardeners through questionnaires by face-to-face interviews. The validity and reliability of the questionnaires were tested and confirmed respectively through a pilot study and Cronbach's alpha. Using simple random sampling method, 55 pomegranate gardeners were chosen for the survey. The dynamic DEA revealed that our gardeners had the best performance in 2013, 2014 and 2015. The average energy consumption was 42,230 MJ/ha to produce 17,300 kg/ha pomegranate. The highest output-input energy ratio was also obtained in 2013, 2014 and 2015 of 1.013. The most efficient gardeners consumed more renewable energy especially in the form of farm yard manure. Accordingly, the gardeners with the least efficiency should enhance pomegranate yield and reduce the extra energy inputs of around 10,000 kg/ha (58% of average) and 25,000 MJ/ha (59% of the average), respectively. Malmquist index showed that the best efficient gardeners had annual positive technology change of 8.3%. Statistical analyses confirmed that each positive percentage of technology change reduces the energy input by 710 times and CO2 emission mitigation by 634 times meaning that the gardeners used some energy efficient technologies that lead to lower GHG emissions. The technology change can be predicted by some of the socio-demographic attributes of the gardeners such as farming experience, net income and participating in extensional classes. The study concludes that highly efficient pomegranate production besides new technology use policies would ultimately contribute to the robust climate change mitigation from this sector. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.