Abstract

The objective of this study was to measure Technical Efficiency (TE), Allocative Efficiency (AE) and Economic Efficiency (EE) in Caspian cattle feedlot farms. In this research, 70 farms were selected and efficiency estimated by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. The results showed that for the case of Constant Returns to Scale (CRS), mean technical, allocative and cost efficiencies were 67.66, 80.57 and 53.5%, respectively and for the case of Variable Returns to Scale (VRS), mean technical, allocative and cost efficiencies were 87.23, 74.87 and 65.90%, respectively. crsTE were significantly affected by farm size (p0.05). crsTE and vrsTE were not significantly affected by farmer’s age, farmer’s education and farmer’s experience (p>0.05). On the basis of results of this research, we can improve efficiency of Caspian cattle feedlot farms by correct using of production inputs, such as increasing length of fattening period, decreasing farm size and decreasing metabolizable energy and crude protein intake of calve.