EFFICIENCY AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF GREEK BEEKEEPING FARMS

E. Papanagiotou, P. Makri, P. Papanagiotou

Abstract: Beekeeping is an economic activity, not only because of the products it offers, but also for being environmentally friendly. Greece is a significant honey producing country, given its limited population and area. Thus, the present study attempts to perform an important economic analysis of the Greek beekeeping sector, and explore the efficiency of beekeeping farms by applying the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. According to the results, significant inefficiencies have been identified, despite the fact that beekeeping seems to be a profitable sector. More precisely, beekeepers could achieve the same level of output by reducing their inputs by 34% for the short-run and by 43% for the long-run, on average, given the technology adopted. In addition, the majority of beekeepers should make important changes to their scale of operation. Finally, the reorganisation of the used inputs along with the appropriate adjustments, could lead to the improvement of both: efficiency and economic performance.

Keywords: beekeeping; Data Envelopment Analysis; economic results; Greece

Date published: 2017-09-13