Management Efficiency of Chestnut-Cultivating Householdsin Chungnam Province

摘要

The study, utilizing a data envelopment analysis (DEA) which is one of the nonparametric estimation methods, aims to evaluate the management efficiency of chestnut tree cultivators in such provinces in Chungchungnam-do as Cheong-yang, Gong-ju, Bu-yeoand so on. The analysis data of this study is based on inputs and outputs of 20 forestry households surveyed in the 2012 survey titled 'A Study on Current Level and Condition of Chestnut Cultivation and Management', which was conducted from March 2012 toOctober 2012. The elements of inputs are composed of management cost, harvesting cost, material cost, non-operation expenses and cultivation area, while the element of output is a gross margin only. Then the study analyzes a technical efficiency, a pure-technical efficiency and a scale efficiency using CCR and BCC model among DEA methods. Based on that, it also provides improvement methods for forestry households that turned out to be inefficient. In order to verify the result of DEA analysis, the study additionally compares a result of this efficiency study with that of chestnuts management standard diagnostic table. According to the result, the average value of technical efficiency analyzed was 0.667, proving to be inefficient in general. Given thatthe average value of pure-technical efficiency was 0.944 and that of scale efficiency was 0.703, it can be inferred that inefficiency exists in the field of scale, not in the field of cultivation techniques. As for forestry households with the efficiency score of 1, it is shown that there were 6 households that recorded 1 in the technical efficiency field and 13 households that recorded 1 in the pure technical efficiency. Meanwhile, there were 6 households that recorded 1 in all of the three aspects. In the comparison with the scores from chestnuts management standard diagnostic table, there were 5 households made a high score of over 80, among which are 3 households with score 1 in the technical efficiency. Also, the results of this study and the chestnuts management standard diagnostic table are proved to have the same result, both of them showing the same households that recorded the highest score and the lowest score. This means the management efficiency evaluation using DEA can be applied to thefieldwork along with the chestnuts management standard diagnostic table.