Energy Efficiency Outlook of New Zealand Dairy Farming Systems: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Approach

Abstract

This study evaluates energy efficiency of pastoral (PDFs) and barn (BDFs) dairy farming systems in New Zealand through application of data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Two models constant return to scale (CCR) and variable return to scale (BCC) of DEA were employed for determining the technical (TE), pure technical (PTE) and scale (SE) efficiencies of New Zealand pastoral and barn dairy systems. Further, benchmarking was also performed to separate efficient and inefficient dairy farms and energy saving potential was identified for both dairy systems based upon their optimal energy consumption. For this study, the energy inputs data were taken from 50 dairy farms (including PDFs and BDFs) across Canterbury, New Zealand. The results indicated that the average technical, pure technical and scale efficiencies of pastoral (PDFs) dairy systems were 0.84, 0.90, 0.93 and for barn (BDFs) systems were 0.78, 0.84, 0.92, respectively, showing that energy efficiency is slightly better in PDFs system than the BDFs. From the total number of dairy farms 40% and 48% were efficient based on the constant return to scale and variable return to scale models, respectively. Further, the energy saving potential for PDFs and BDFs dairy systems through optimal energy consumption were identified as 23% and 35%, respectively. Thus, energy auditing, use of renewable energy and precision agricultural technology were recommended for energy efficiency improvement in both dairy systems.

Optimization of energy consumption and its effect on the energy use efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions of wheat production in Turkey

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“…DEA was also applied by Mousavi-Avval et al [34]. Imran et al [54] estimated energy use efficiency in cotton production using DEA in Pakistan, Powar et al [35] in Sugarcane in India, Ilyas et al [36] in dairy farming in New Zealand, Kaab et al [37] in sugarcane in Iran, and Raheli et al [38] in tomato production in Iran. A nonparametric DEA was used in this study to analyze the energy use efficiency of wheat growers (Additional file 1).…”

Energy Use and Economic Analysis of Fertilizer Use in Wheat and Sugar Beet Production in Serbia

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“…It is important to recognize the input elements and recommended methods to control them [8]. Energy inputs in plant production can be classified as direct and indirect energy inputs [14,[19][20][21][22]. Direct energy is most easily recognized as fuel and electricity.…”

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“…As a result, one avoids the risk of mistakenly defining the functional form at the cost of loss of the statistical inference. Much research applied nonparametric approach to analyze agricultural performance in terms of efficiency or productivity Ilyas et al, 2020;Nastis et al, 2019;Skevas & Cabrera, 2020). The non-parametric efficiency measures can be used to construct productivity indices and indicators (Chambers, 2002;Blancard & Hoarau, 2011;O'Donnell, 2012).…”