Relationship between Meta-Technology Ratios and Varietal Differences in Date Production (Case Study of Sistan and Baluchestan, Iran)

This paper uses the concept of Meta-frontier to investigate the relationship between Meta Technology Ratios (MTR) and different varieties in datepalms including; Mazafati, Rabi and Zardan that are produced widely in Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran. We used a stratified sampling of 300 date farmers of this province in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and estimated a stochastic production frontier using pooled data. Then, stochastic production frontiers were estimated for each variety, separately. At the end, the meta-frontier parameters were obtained to estimate the Meta technology ratio. Results showed that the estimated mean values of technical efficiency for the pooled frontier, variety group frontiers and Meta frontier across all data were 0.558, 0.543 and 0.0014, respectively. The value of Meta technology ratio was 0.407 for Mazafati variety, 0.432 and 0.507 for Rabi and Zardan varieties respectively. Mazafati had the lowest MTR while, Zardan and Rabi varieties are more closed together. Surprisingly, Mazafati had the lowest technical efficiency with respect to group frontier and Metafrontier. The estimated average technical efficiencies with respect to group frontiers for Mazafati, Zardan and Rabi are: 0.518, 0.520 and 0.592, respectively, while Mazafati is kind of date which is the most exported variety.