1. Introduction
Rearing chickens has been a widespread human activity for thousands of years. The historical timeline of chicken domestication is still a controversial subject of research efforts [
1,
2], but archaeological data suggest that chickens as companions of humans were present on farms in Southeast Asia and China at least 8000 years ago, and then migrated to Western Europe and other parts of the world via land and sea [
3,
4,
5]. Today, chickens are the most numerous domesticated animal population worldwide, with a ubiquitous occurrence [
2], and thus poultry farms are common agricultural businesses. The expression “poultry” generally refers to domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of obtaining products such as eggs, meat, or feathers, which include chickens, turkeys, ducks, or other species. Chickens account for over 90% of the world’s poultry population and thus are the essential poultry species anywhere. Therefore, the term “poultry” is frequently used as a synonym for chickens [
6].
Many different businesses are involved in the raising of chickens, including those that produce eggs (layer chicken), meat (broiler chicken), and breeding stock (pullet chicken). Large numbers of people across different societies are supported financially and professionally by these pursuits [
7]; especially in poorer countries this sector is essential to alleviate poverty, including through revenue generation for small farmers [
8,
9]. Furthermore, the poultry sector is vital to ensure food security and public health [
10]. Eggs, which contain over 40 proteins, including bactericidal, strong antigenic, and antihypertensive proteins, are becoming acknowledged as a particularly valuable meal with the same biological value as breast milk [
11,
12]. Eggs also contain 18 different amino acids, 9 of which are required for life [
13,
14]. While excessive meat consumption is associated with health risks [
15], meat has been classified as a favorable component of a person’s daily diet due to its high protein content and ability to ensure micronutrient adequacy for consumers especially in countries with economies under development, with poultry farming being the primary industry in this regard [
16,
17]. International hen egg production has increased by around 25% in the last decade, reaching nearly 77 million metric tons in 2018 [
18], with the demand for animal protein expected to rise further in the future. China produces more than one-third of the world’s eggs (about 34.7% in 2018), while other major egg producers are the United States (6.5 million metric tons in 2018) and India (5.2 million metric tons in 2018); these top three countries account for half of the global egg production (49.9% in 2018) [
18]. The United States is the world’s largest poultry meat producer, with 17 percent of global output, followed by China and Brazil [
18].
In Pakistan, poultry is one of the largest and most vibrant sectors, contributing significantly and with an increasing tendency to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (around 1.5 percent) [
19,
20,
21]. Poultry is the second-largest segment of the national economy, after textiles, with a dynamic pattern of development. This sector is predicted to generate 1.5 million new jobs within the next few years. Pakistan produces on average 48.83 million layers, 1.02 billion broilers, and 11.8 million breeding stocks yearly, making it the world’s 11th largest chicken producer [
21]. The poultry business in Pakistan currently (2022 data) produces 11,250 million table eggs and 1245 million kilos of chicken meat each year [
22]. Further growth is expected; over Rs. 700 billion is currently invested in the poultry business [
22]. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey for the year 2018, commercial layer, breeder, and broiler stocks all showed considerable expected yearly growth, namely 7.0 percent, 5.0 percent, and 10 percent, respectively [
21]. The national poultry product consumption market is far from reaching saturation. Poultry meat accounts for 40 to 45 percent of total meat consumption in Pakistan [
23]. Per capita, 67 eggs and 6.61 kg of poultry meat were consumed in 2014; this annual consumption is far less than the World Health Organization’s requirements of 255 to 300 eggs and 27 kg of meat [
17,
23]. This implies that the lack of animal protein intake could be attributable to a scarcity of animal protein-providing products available to consumers. This further suggests that demand for poultry products is significantly greater than what local producers can currently supply, which explains the vibrant development in the poultry sector in Pakistan, including the expected considerable growth in the demand for poultry products. This calls for very urgent attention to be devoted to the productivity and efficiency of the sector.
To increase poultry productivity, a holistic strategy is required that considers technical advancement and possible measures to increase production efficiency, while at the same time strengthening institutional and market-related aspects. Lessons from research and development initiatives, however, show that for economically less mature countries such as Pakistan, it is increased efficiency which should be focused on as being the main engine of productivity growth as well as a key driver of economic and sustainable development; it is an increase in efficiency which may effectively help the underprivileged populations in developing nations [
6,
24].
One of the most pressing issues in developing-country agriculture is the need to increase production output per input unit. To address this challenge, it is essential to understand how efficiently farmers use their limited resources and the available technologies. If resources are not used efficiently and the underlying factors for this situation have been identified, the output can be raised by using optimal and efficient production adjustment factors. If resources are efficiently used within the existing infrastructure, the output can be increased through innovation and the adoption of advanced input and processing technology [
25]. Therefore, production and productivity can be increased in a couple of ways. One approach is to employ more inputs or to improve technology given a certain amount of input. Another approach to boost output is to make farmers more efficient while maintaining the same level of inputs and the same technology. A technically efficient farmer is expected to produce more output than a farmer who is less efficient in production. As a result, this has a positive effect on the farmers’ income, the sustainability of farming, and poverty reduction [
26]. This research focused on the second approach of enhancing production efficiency, namely the aim to make farmers more efficient while the level of inputs remains unchanged and the same technology continues to be applied. Most poultry farmers in Pakistan are poor and unaware of the potential of utilizing resources to increase production efficiency. At the same time, increasing chicken production efficiency is of utmost significance if optimality is to be reached under economic and sustainability criteria. For the government and chicken farmers to design and implement the appropriate policies, the producers must be able to recognize the elements that impact production efficiency at the farm level.
There is considerable literature available on the technical efficiency of poultry farmers in different regions of the world, although very few studies have been conducted in Pakistan. The documented studies explored technical efficiency of layer and broiler production across different countries, including Thailand [
26], China [
27,
28], Nigeria [
29,
30,
31,
32,
33], and Ghana [
34,
35]. All studies found inefficiency among poultry farmers. The existing literature included the production inputs and characteristics as well as institutional factors that affect the technical efficiency of layer and broiler poultry production. The productivity of layer and broiler poultry farms is increased by production inputs such as flock size, feed, and labor [
35,
36,
37]. Water consumption could also increase egg and meat production [
32,
34,
35,
38]. For vaccination use, different studies found mixed results. For example, Yenibehit et al. [
35] found that vaccination use increases output production, and the results of Nihal et al. [
39] showed that vaccination is insignificant in poultry production. In the inefficiency effect model, age, education, and experience positively influence layer and broiler farmers’ technical efficiency [
34,
35], while institutional factors such as credit access and extension services decrease technical inefficiency [
40].
Still, there is a lot of information missing in previous literature. In particular, the current situation in Pakistan is not well studied. For Pakistan, some researchers analyzed the technical efficiency of open-broiler poultry farmers [
36,
39]. Most studies abroad ignored the rearing housing systems in their analysis, and for Pakistan no previous analysis of this type of system is available. This is an important knowledge gap, as this type of system now plays a very significant role in poultry production in Pakistan. Additionally, there is no single study available on egg production in Pakistan. Some poultry housing systems’ productivity is very high, and some housing systems’ productivity is low with the same use of inputs, and thus it is essential to analyze the currently prevailing systems. In Pakistan, only a few previous studies have been conducted on the technical efficiency of poultry production, and they focused on old systems. The trend of battery cage and environmental control shed systems usage is increasing in Pakistan, but these new types of systems so far lack an analysis of whether they are operated efficiently in practice in the country. To fill this research gap, this study focused explicitly on these new systems (battery cage and environmental control shed systems).
The Punjab province was selected as the area under study because 70 percent of poultry farms in Pakistan are in this region [
41]. Punjab, therefore, is the main poultry-farming province in Pakistan. The Punjab province’s chicken farmers should be aware of the critical output drivers among the variety of factor inputs, and they should be offered evidence-based suggestions for raising chicken production efficiency. This is the main step to ensuring profitability of the poultry business, increasing sustainable use of available resources, and improving food security in the country of Pakistan and beyond.
The degree of novelty of this study is very high. Previous studies in Pakistan focused only on Pakistan’s old rearing poultry housing system and analyzed a rather small geographic area. This research covers a large study area and for the first-time analyses the technical efficiency (TE) in the practice of the more recently introduced battery cage and environmental control shed systems. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no research on the TE of the new system of poultry farms (battery cage and environmental control shed). The battery cage system is used for rearing layer birds, and the environmental control shed system is employed for the rearing of broiler chickens.
The current study aimed to estimate the TE level and determine the factors influencing the technical efficiency of layer and broiler poultry farmers in Pakistan. The goal is to inform policymakers, farmers, and stakeholders. This can contribute to the formulation of policies to improve the well-being of people in the country, and it can support farmers in making appropriate decisions to increase the productivity of their businesses. The findings are also interesting for researchers in the area of poultry production.
Stochastic frontier analysis was applied in this research to evaluate the technical efficiency of poultry farmers in Pakistan.
Section 2 of this paper explains the methodology used in the current study. In
Section 3, the econometric results of the technical efficiency layer and broiler farms are presented, and these are discussed in the fourth section. The conclusions of the current study and recommendations for layer and broiler farmers are provided in the last section.
5. Conclusions and Recommendations
Improvements in agricultural production performance and sustainable growth may be achieved through two methods: either through the introduction of new agricultural production equipment or by enhancing farmers’ technical efficiency levels, both of which are feasible options for increasing productivity in the country’s agricultural sector. Technical efficiency has remained a prominent topic of research, especially in underdeveloped economies where the majority of farmers are resource-poor. Given the current state of technology, improving the farmer’s technical efficiency plays an important role in enhancing the output and sustainability of farming. This study’s main goal was to estimate the TE (technical efficiency) level of layer and broiler poultry farmers in Punjab, Pakistan, and to identify the factors that influence the TE. The findings of the study can inform different policymakers and stakeholders in order to pave the way towards a more efficient poultry sector in Pakistan:
- (i)
The government of Pakistan could use the research findings as a guide for policy formulation and implementation to improve the socio-economic well-being of the people in the country.
- (ii)
The information of this study will also help poultry farmers to make appropriate decisions in order to increase the production of their farm business.
- (iii)
The results could guide new poultry farmers who aim to adopt a system of production that is not only commercially viable due to a high output but also reaches an improved technical efficiency, thus making better use of each unit of input.
- (iv)
The research findings will be helpful to future researchers who might want to conduct further research on the same or related topics.
- (v)
The research findings can be good reading material for the general public, and especially for all those who are interested in increasing TE in the poultry production business.
The study used a stochastic frontier model and employed the cross-sectional data of the 2020/2021 production period covering randomly sampled 210 layers and broiler poultry farmers in Punjab, Pakistan (105 layer poultry farms, 105 broiler poultry farms). The parameters of the stochastic frontier function (from which efficiency scores must be assessed) and the inefficiency impacts model were considered and computed using maximum likelihood methods in a single stage of estimation. Production frontier was estimated by integrating relevant input variables like flock size, labor, feed, water, and vaccination use. Coefficients of the input variables are interpreted as the output elasticity concerning each input variable.
The estimated input effects of the layer poultry farms showed that flock size, labor, feed, and water consumption were significant at a 1% level of statistical significance, whereas vaccination use was insignificant. Coefficients of significant maximum likelihood estimates showed that a 1% increase in units of flock size, labor man-days, feed, and water consumption would increase the output of egg production by 0.21%, 0.11%, 0.36%, and 0.12%, respectively, in the study area as a whole. For the broiler poultry farms, the input evaluation results indicated that flock size, feed, and water consumption had significance for meat production at 1% level of statistical significance. In contrast, the effect of labor and vaccination was insignificant on broiler production. The magnitude of broiler farm’s input variables discloses that when farmers achieve a 1% increase in inputs of flock size, feed, and water consumption, the output would increase by 0.18%, 0.42%, and 0.16%, respectively.
The results of the technical inefficiency effect model applied to both layer and broiler poultry farms showed that all the examined variables (age, education, experience, access to credit, and access to extension services) positively influenced the technical efficiency of farmers. When evaluated against the identified frontier of efficient production with prevailing systems, the average efficiency level of layer farmers in the study was 0.89%, which is far too low to be satisfactory. Thus, a main conclusion that can be drawn from the results of this study is that egg production can be increased by 11%through better use of available resources in the area under study and without changing the technologies and infrastructures as such. Considerable optimization potential also exists for the broiler poultry farms. The minimum and maximum technical efficiency levels among broiler farmers were 81%and 99%, respectively, with an average level of 92%. This suggests that, if proper reallocation of crucial input measures is given sufficient attention, the average output might be increased by 8% compared with the current level.
According to the findings of this study, several recommendations can be formulated which should be addressed by the government or other relevant organizations:
- (a)
The study findings revealed that education of farmers, measured in years of schooling, affects the technical efficiency of poultry farmers. This indicates that education is essential in improving technical efficiency, and thereby the sample farmers’ performance. Hence, the government should design and strengthen appropriate policies to provide adequate and effective essential educational opportunities to poultry farmers and their families.
- (b)
In poultry farmers, practical experience has a beneficial and considerable impact on technical efficiency. Therefore, farmers should be trained for a longer time and in detail. To achieve this, the previously built farmers’ training centers and agriculture research demonstration facilities can be used and should be strengthened, in particular by enhancing the practical training they provide and by acknowledging the role of such training to ensure the application of the highest standards on poultry farms in practice.
- (c)
Younger farmers are less technically efficient than more mature farmers. Therefore, younger farmers, in particular, must receive ongoing training in the agricultural business context and a follow-up during agricultural operations.
- (d)
Credit access enables farmers to reliably acquire inputs they otherwise could not afford, thus increasing agricultural production and productivity. Hence, the government should establish and expand the service given by credit-providing institutions such as microfinance institutions and agricultural cooperatives.
- (e)
Although considerable further optimization potential exists, the study’s findings showed that the poultry’s technical efficiency is relatively high in the area under study. The battery cage and environmental control shed system is a suitable choice to ensure high production and well-performing poultry businesses. Therefore, the current study recommends that the government and other related actors encourage farmers to adopt this type of method (battery cage and environmental control shed) to enhance poultry production.