Estimating capacity utilization of Chinese state farms

Abstract

As the most populous country in the world, China has one of the largest agricultural systems in the world, which plays an important role in ensuring China's food security. The state farms comprise an integral part of China's agricultural system. However, there have been few studies evaluating the efficiency and capacity utilization of China's state farms. In this paper, we estimate the efficiency and capacity utilization of state farms across 27 Chinese regions by applying the data envelopment analysis method. Performance of the overall state farm system and its three sub-industries is taken into consideration simultaneously. Over the period of 2013-2017, the technical efficiency fluctuated in between 0.74 and 0.84, whereas the capacity utilization fluctuated around 0.85. The regional differences were observed. The regional differences were also observed.