Evaluation of technical efficiency of some rain-fed cereal and legume crops production in Syria: does crisis matter?

BACKGROUND: Syria is a developing country whose economy is still dominated by the agricultural sector. The agricultural sector is considered as the main source of food in Syria and a major source of employment and income generation. Food and agricultural policies in Syria focus heavily on achieving food security and improving its four pillars (availability, accessibility, stability and utilization). As a result, until 2011, a good progress has been attained in food availability. The food security situation deteriorated in Syria after 2011 crisis, with the number of people facing acute food insecurity rising from 7.9 million in 2020 to a staggering 12.4 million in 2021. This is the result of many shocks that the agricultural sector has been exposed to, such as the relative decrease in cultivated areas, high costs of production, reduced input availability including labour, prevailing violence, related damage to farm equipment, and abandoned land. In view of the changes that the agricultural sector has been exposed to in Syria as a result of the crisis, the study concerns measuring the technical efficiency of production of some rain-fed cereal and legume crops in Syria and comparing it in the pre and post-crisis period, which has started in 2011. A non-parametric (DEA) method is applied for measuring technical efficiency during the time period 2003–2010 (pre-crisis) and the period 2011–2018 (post-crisis) with censored regression (the tobit model) to investigate the determinants of technical efficiency. A t test is used to test the null hypothesis (H(0)) that there was no difference in technical efficiency of the production of studied crops before and after the crisis in Syria and the alternative hypothesis (H(a)) that there was a significant difference in technical efficiency. RESULTS: The findings show low level of technical efficiency in the post-crisis period. The results verified differences in the technical efficiency of pre- and post-crisis period. The use of censored regression with dummy for crisis has shown negative and significant effect on technical efficiency of each of the durum wheat and lentil crops, while it had no significant effect on the other studied crops. CONCLUSIONS: This study can provide important information to the government to pursue a new policy for recovery and improving the agricultural production and productivity. There is an urgent need to adopt new policies that focus on providing production requirements in the form of low-interest loans, sustainable use of resources, providing support for the marketing process, and focusing on the export markets of some study crops (chickpeas and lentils). Government should improve agricultural extension services for farmers and encouraging them to adopt new technologies.