Evaluation of Technical Efficiency of Aquaculture in China

【Objective】Technical efficiency is one of the important indicators reflecting the green development level of aquaculture, and assessing the efficiency of aquaculture technology plays an important role in promoting the optimal allocation of production factors in different provinces.【Method】The comprehensive technical efficiency of aquaculture in 31 provinces in China was evaluated and analyzed by using the DEA model based on the statistical data in 2018, the cluster analysis was carried out for 31 provinces by using the results of comprehensive technical efficiency, and the redundancy of input factors when the technical efficiency was effective was measured.【Results】It was found that comprehensive technical efficiency of aquaculture nationwide was overall low, with an average value of 0.827, and the average values of pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency were 0.93 and 0.89, and there was room for improvement in both pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency. The comprehensive levels of aquaculture input factors and technology applications were significantly different in different provinces, and the comprehensive technical efficiency of 11 provinces were effective, accounting for 35.48%, while the comprehensive technical efficiency value of 48.39% provinces was lower than the mean level. The variation characteristics of aquaculture returns to scale in different provinces were different, and the number of provinces with increasing returns to scale reached 18, accounting for 58.06%, which indicated that increasing the scale of input factors was a feasible way to improve efficiency. The three echelons divided by cluster analysis included the primary aquaculture producing provinces and non-primary producing provinces, which meant that the comprehensive technical efficiency was not directly related to output scale.【Conclusion】In order to promote the steady improvement of aquaculture efficiency, it is proposed to increase the scale of aquaculture, strengthen the technology innovation ability of aquaculture, arrange aquaculture input factors reasonably, and predict the demand for early-warning aquaculture production scale.