Productivity and Technical Efficiency of Smallholding Tea Plantations in North Bengal− A DEA Analysis

Abstract

The proliferation of small tea growers into non-traditional areas is a very significant phenomenon of tea industry of North Bengal in recent years. The present study has estimated technical efficiency at the level of individual grower using the technique of Data Envelopment Analysis. The result shows that the mean efficiency of DMUs is quite high for the whole sample. However, it varies considerably across different classes of holdings. The study has indicated that there is ample potential for improvements in efficiency performance in terms of realisation of higher yield for all holding sizes of plantations, and especially for the bottom size class.