Technical Efficiency and Output Losses in Shrimp Farming: A Case in Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Abstract

The conversion from black tiger shrimp farming and crop farming to white leg shrimp production is widespread in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta provinces. However, this conversion trend also contains many risks related to the technical aspects of the production process. The study mainly aims to estimate the technical efficiency of white leg shrimp farming. It also compares the technical efficiency of white leg shrimp farming between the traditional group that historically has cultivated white leg shrimp and the group that recently converted from black tiger shrimp and crops to white leg shrimp, in order to evaluate the efficiency and adaptability of shrimp farming. Primary data were collected by directly interviewing 99 farmers in traditional areas and 101 farmers in recently converted areas in the study sites and analyzed by using the stochastic frontier method. The calculated technical efficiency was around 72.9 percent, suggesting that farmers could increase their output level by about 27.1%, given constant inputs. There was no difference in the technical efficiency of the two groups, indicating that the converted farms have sufficient adaptability when switching to white leg shrimp farming. The output loss in farmers’ production is still very high, with an average loss of 1973 kg/hectare.