Does specialization matter for technical efficiency in beef cattle farming?

The objective of this study was to examine the impact of specialization on technical efficiency of beef cattle farms in Samsun province, Turkey. Farm-level cross-sectional data was collected from randomly selected 171 beef cattle farms. Stochastic frontier analysis was used to determine technical efficiency of beef farming and to identify inefficiency determinants. The model results revealed that mean technical efficiency of specialized and combined cattle farms was 0.66 and 0.55, respectively, whereas it was 0.61 on average. Besides, mean technical efficiency of 29.76% of combined cattle farms were lower than 0.50 whereas this rate was solely 5.74% for specialized cattle farms. The results of the study highlighted that specialization increased technical efficiency in beef production. Efficiency model revealed that an increase in use of all inputs except for roughage increases the amount of beef. The higher elasticity of concentrate feed, capital expense and other expense relative to other inputs indicated that these inputs are more effective on beef production. On the other hand, the variable of labor had no significant effect and indicated that beef production was not labor-intensive. The sum of input elasticity was 0.52 and highlighted that cattle farms operated under decreasing return to scale. Inefficiency model revealed that record keeping and herd size reduced the level of inefficiency, whereas non-agricultural income, fodder crop area and external input rate increased. Cattle farms should be encouraged to improve farm size and keep farm record with specialization, and the government should direct a large part of its support to specialized cattle farms to improve beef farming with technical efficiency.