Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
FRESENIUS ENVIRONMENTAL BULLETIN, cilt.25, sa.9, ss.3548-3556, 2016 (SCI-Expanded)
Dried apricot farmers use intensive agricultural inputs, leading to concerns about efficiency of farms and global warming. In this paper, we investigated the farms in Malatya Province of Turkey, the leading dried apricot producing province, at three important dimensions: i) calculating the input-output energy ii) measuring the energy efficiency performance using a stochastic frontier approach (SFA), and finally iii) estimating the greenhouse gas emissions. Data used in the research were collected from 46 randomly selected farmers. Results showed that input and output energies in total were 17,653.83 MJ ha(-1) and 39,231.76 MJ ha(-1), respectively. The highest amounts of input energies were used for nitrogen and fungicides. The econometric analysis (SFA) revealed that the mean score of energy (technical) efficiency of farms was 69%, indicating that elimination of inefficiencies can increase energy output up to 31%. To ensure the full energy (technical) efficiency in the dried apricot cultivation, policies that consider the socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of the farmers should be developed. The total CO2 emission was 440.37 kg CO2 eq ha(-1) for dried apricot production. The machinery and diesel fuel should be used in optimal level to decrease CO2 emissions.