Efficiency of apple small-scale farming in Albania-a Stochastic Frontier Approach

Abstract

Apple production sector in Albania is growing very fast in Albania but research about apple production efficiency is almost absent. This research aims at assessing the technical efficiency and factors affecting it for the Albanian apple farms. Data of 150 randomly selected farmers in the area of Korça region are analyzed with the Stochastic Frontier Approach. The average level of technical efficiency results 88%, with 12% potential for improvement. The efficiency gap is about 21%. Major factors with positive effect on technical efficiency result the access to advisory services, average plots size, number of apple plots; education and proportion of orchards under modern technology have negative effects; age, and farmer’s experience are not significant. Measures to support planting of apples should take into account the size of plots. There is much space to improve extension services to farmers, so adequate policies are needed to support farmers with training, information to improve their skills and knowledge, to ensure they are supplied with quality inputs and technologies at reasonable prices, and policies to improve farmers access to markets.

Keywords

• apple farm
• factor of efficiency
• stochastic frontier approach
• technical efficiency