Journal of Biology, Agriculture and Healthcare www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-3208 (Paper) ISSN 2225-093X (Online) Vol.6, No.12 2016 106 Effect of Different Crop Management System on Technical Efficiency in Sugarcane Production in Faisalabad, Punjab Region of Pakistan Shamsheer ul Haq * Vedat CEYHAN Ismet BOZ Pomi Shahbaz Department of Agricultural Economics, Ondokuz Mayıs University, 55139, Samsun,Turkey Abstract Sugarcane plays an important role in the economic sustainability of the sugarcane growers. The high return of it attracts the farm scale to devote a part of land to sugarcane relatively to their land holdings and economic returns differs associated with crop management type such as ratoon, fresh and mixed. Therefore, the study examined the technical efficiency level of small, medium and large farmers under different crop management system as fresh, ratoon and mixed crop system. The bulk of the data were collected from randomly selected 100 sugarcane growers by using face to face interview. Cluster analysis was performed to select similar growers in terms of manager’s profile, profitability and land ownership for small, medium and large farmers. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to calculate the efficiency scores such as technical efficiency, allocative efficiency and economic efficiency. Research results showed that the education level of the large farmers was satisfactory level comparing to others. Most small farmers were illiterate. The difference among the farm size in terms of the variables of age of respondents, sugarcane experience and family members were statistically significant at the 5% probability level. The high acreages of land holdings enabled the farmers to devote the huge area to sugarcane crops. The acreages at large farms were significantly high and also keep their more acres of land under sugarcane crop by 6.49 acres out of 13.66 acres. Based on the results of efficiency analysis, the main sources of economic inefficiency was allocative efficiency in the research area, indicating that monitoring input prices in market was critical for the sample farmers. Comparative analysis showed that mixed cropping system was the worst management system in terms of efficiency scores. Farmers would increase their economic efficiency if they improved their skills through participating the extension and training programs and by monitoring the input market conditions when allocated their factors harmonious with factor prices. Keywords: Efficiency scores, Sugarcane, Farm scale, Faisalabad, Management system 1. Introduction Agriculture is a one of the most significant sectors of Pakistan, which contributes 19.8 percent in gross domestic product of country. Agriculture sector creates a huge platform for the peoples to work and to earn money to meet their needs. According to (GOP, 2016), the 42.3 percent of total rural population is highly contingent on agriculture for their livelihood. One of the most important cash crops cultivating in the Pakistan is sugarcane. Sugarcane is growing in many countries of the world. Brazil is the first largest sugarcane producing country with 728.13 tonnes followed by India (349.56 tonnes), China (123.46 tonnes) and Thailand (96.50 tonnes). Pakistan has fifth order among the sugarcane producing countries (Bashir et al. 2012; Nisha, 2015). Sugarcane is ranked at third among the thirteen crops being cultivated in Pakistan. Sugarcane contributes 3.1 percent in agriculture value adding and 0.6 percent in gross domestic product. This crop requires almost 10 months to harvest. The total sugarcane cultivated area in the previous year is 2.82 million acres while the production of sugarcane stood at 62.7 million tons (GOP, 2016). Sugarcane cultivation is a powerful tool in uplifting the social and economic condition of the Pakistani farmers. Beside of that, 99 percent of the country’s sugar is being extracted from the sugarcane and remaining is obtained from sugar beet (Azam & Khan, 2010) (Batool et al. 2015). Likewise, in every province of country this crop is being grown but the Punjab and Sindh are founded as main producers of the sugarcane. Both provinces have 90 percent share in the total production of the sugarcane (Munir et al. 2015). It is grown for the sugar and the other raw products like molasses. As contributing in the development of the economy of country, the sugar industry has secured a second position after textile industry. Nowadays number of working sugar mills in Pakistan is 86 having capacity of producing 7.0 million tons sugar annually. Government is earning revenue of 22.0 billion rupees whereas farmers are enjoying Rs. 110-135 billion. Rupees 20.0 billion is being earned by the vendors transporters, contractors and suppliers. About 1.20 million people are employed directly and indirectly by this industry (PSMA, 2015). Where the sugarcane plays a vital role both in socioeconomic condition of farmers and sugar industry at the brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (IISTE): E-Journals