MEAT GOAT ENTERPRISE EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS IN THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES

Meat goat enterprise efficiency was estimated using an input distance function (IDF) by applying stochastic production frontier techniques for the southeastern U.S. region. We found increasing returns to scale and scope economies for southeastern U.S. meat goat enterprises. Mean technical efficiency was 0.81. Our results suggest southeastern U.S. meat goat enterprises can be scale efficient if their size of operation is >~60 goats or >40 breeding does. Cost and IDF analyses show input expenses decreased substantially with increasing scale of operations in southeastern U.S. meat goat production. Empirical Monte Carlo simulation techniques show consistency of small-sample properties for the IDF.