The cultivation of saffron, which is one of the most expensive agricultural products in the world, is the main source of livelihood and economic wellbeing for the rural communities of Gonabad county in the eastern part of Iran. Nevertheless, farm monitoring in the region has shown that many saffron growers apply a high-density planting system for more profit. This practice results in the loss of land productivity after a six-year production cycle. As a consequence, farmers abandon the cultivated lands and move to plant saffron in available virgin lands. The purpose of this study is to analyse the technical efficiency of saffron farms and its determinants with an emphasis on the role of planting density. A survey was conducted in 2019, and a cross-sectional random sampling technique was used to select 110 saffron growers. We first assessed the technical efficiency of farms using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model with input orientation. In the next step, efficiency scores were regressed on explanatory variables using OLS and bootstrapped truncated regression to identify efficiency related factors. We find that planting density negatively influenced technical efficiency, suggesting that it is necessary for saffron growers to be educated on the negative impacts of the dense planting system.

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