THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY AND GLOBAL MANAGEMENT JOINS WITH THE CONFERENCE OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN TAIWAN-VIETNAM CROSS COUNTRY ENTERPRIRSES Tainan, TAIWAN, 31 Oct – 2 Nov, 2012 METAFRONTIER DEA APPROACH IN MEASURING PRODUCTIVITY EFFICIENCY DIFFERENCES OF THAI PADDY RICE Anupong Wongchai 1,* , Darunee Yotimart 2 , and Ke C. Peng 3 1,* Department of Tropical Agriculture and International Cooperation, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung, TAIWAN E-mail: add.a@hotmail.com 2 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Buriram Rajabhat University, Buriram, THAILAND E-mail: daruneeyo@hotmail.com 3 Department of Agribusiness Management, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung, TAIWAN E-mail: kechung@mail.npust.edu.tw Abstract. Thailand has a strong of rice production that represents a significant portion of the Thai economy and labor force. Since 1959, Thailand has experienced a development of policies oriented to improving rice production. These policies have been enforced throughout the country, particularly in the regional level. Consequently, rice productivity is variously different across the regions. Therefore, this research aims to compare the productivity differences of technical efficiency (TE) and technology gap ratios (TGRs) in Thai paddy rice by adapting a metafrontier data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. The study focuses on 76 provinces where are separated into four main regions. The panel data was collected from the Office of Agricultural Economics from the crop year 2001/02 to 2010/11 in Thailand. The metafrontier DEA approach is presented and analyzed through the Thai paddy rice production process. The results found that the metafrontier scores were ranged from the minimum score 0.42 to the maximum score 0.94. The regional TE scores revealed that the Northeast and the Central performed the highest and lowest average scores at 0.97 and 0.88, respectively. The regional TGRs scores revealed the North having the highest average score (0.87) and the South showing the lowest average score (0.51). In addition, the productivity efficiency for the whole country could improve by increasing the number of rice-farming trainings in farmers, together with decreasing the number of labor forces and irrigated lands. Keywords: Metafrontier DEA Approach, Technical Efficiency, Technology Gap Ratios, Rice Productivity, Thai Paddy Rice. 1 INTRODUCTION Thailand has a strong tradition of rice production. It represents a significant portion of the Thai economy and labor force in the country. Thailand is also the world's largest exporter of rice, accounting for approximately 30 percent of the world market [1] . Besides, rice accounted for 30 percent of the total value of agricultural production in Thailand and 12 percent of the value of all Thai agricultural exports [2] . Thai paddy rice is well-known around the world in terms of highly productive quality with the breeding, the climate, and the farming technique. Since 1959, Thailand has experienced a development of policies oriented to improving rice production [3] . These policies were enforced throughout the country, particularly in the North and Northeast where did rice farming substantially, resulting in a difference in rice production between regions. While in the past, the Central Thailand was the main producer of rice, the North and Northeast rapidly caught up to a comparable amount of production. In the South, rice productivity is still low because of lacking of technically productive skills and other causes such as climate, breeding, and political riot. Consequently, rice productivity among various regions of Thailand is rather different. The dissimilarity in quantity of rice per unit