Identifying sustainable and efficient broiler farms in the light of energy use efficiency and GHG emission reduction: data envelopment analysis approach

Abstract

This study used a non-parametric method in determining the efficiency of farmers, discriminate efficient farmers from inefficient ones, identify wasteful uses of energy in order to optimize the energy inputs for broiler production, investigate the effect of energy optimization on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and the actual total amount of GHG emission compared to the optimum quantity. A total sample size of 55 broiler farmers were selected from Kaduna State of Nigeria through a multi-stage sampling technique. Total energy used in various operations during broiler production was 77916.14 MJ (500 birds)-1. Results revealed that 63% of producers were technically efficient, while 43 producers under pure technical efficiency (PTE) were identified as efficient (79.6%). The mean values of technical efficiency (TE), PTE and scale efficiency (SE) of farmers were observed to be 0.976; 0.993 and 0.983, respectively. Further, 1.38% [1071.54 MJ (500 birds)-1 ] of overall input energies can be saved if the performance of inefficient farms rose to a high level. The study concludes that the total GHG emission can be reduced to the value of 981.08 Kg CO2eq by energy optimization.