Declining water tables and shrinking irrigation supply are two major challenges for agricultural production that increase production costs of high delta crops in Pakistan. Crop producers may tackle these threats by optimizing the use of available resources. To devise policies for improved resource use and cost reduction, assessing current efficiency levels and their determinants can provide useful information. This research assessed the technical, allocative, and groundwater-irrigation efficiency of smallholder sugarcane farms in Faisalabad, Pakistan using primary data for 56 tubewell solo owners, 37 tubewell shareholders, and 47 water buyers and applying the data envelopment analysis technique. The factor affecting the allocative efficiency were explored using the tobit regression. We found that the groundwater-irrigation efficiency ranged from 92% for the solo owners, 92% for shareholders, and to 83% for water buyers. On average, technical efficiency at sugarcane farms was more than 90%. Solo owners, shareholders, and water buyers achieved only 40%, 28%, and 37% of allocative efficiency, respectively. By improving the allocative efficiency through optimal allocation of inputs, farms can considerably decrease their costs for a given output level. The allocative efficiency was negatively associated with farmers’ age, farm size, tubewell depth, discharge rate and salinity in groundwater. Our findings imply that sugarcane farms can substantially reduce their production costs by installing smaller tubewells that match their crop irrigation requirement and groundwater depth. Further, improving the allocative efficiency of relatively large sugarcane farms, monitoring and regulating groundwater extraction to prevent further increase in groundwater and irrigation and soil management practices to reduce salinity can improve the efficiency.

地下水位下降和灌溉供应减少是农业生产面临的两大挑战，它们增加了巴基斯坦高三角洲作物的生产成本。作物生产者可以通过优化可用资源的使用来应对这些威胁。为了制定改善资源使用和降低成本的政策，评估当前的效率水平及其决定因素可以提供有用的信息。本研究评估了巴基斯坦费萨拉巴德小型甘蔗农场的技术、分配和地下水灌溉效率，使用了 56 名管井独立所有者、37 名管井股东和 47 名水购买者的原始数据，并应用数据包络分析技术。使用tobit回归探讨了影响配置效率的因素。我们发现地下水灌溉效率从个人业主的 92%、股东的 92% 和水购买者的 83% 不等。平均而言，甘蔗农场的技术效率超过 90%。独立业主、股东和水购买者分别仅实现了 40%、28% 和 37% 的配置效率。通过优化配置投入来提高配置效率，农场可以显着降低给定产出水平的成本。分配效率与农户年龄、农场规模、管井深度、排放率和盐度呈负相关在地下水中。我们的研究结果表明，甘蔗农场可以通过安装与作物灌溉需求和地下水深度相匹配的较小管井来大幅降低生产成本。此外，提高相对较大的甘蔗农场的分配效率，监测和调节地下水提取以防止地下水和灌溉的进一步增加以及减少盐分的土壤管理措施可以提高效率。