The use of energy in milk production; a case study from Konya province of Turkey

The aim of this study is to examine the energy efficiencies of dairy products produced in dairy enterprises in Konya region and to provide suggestions to increase energy efficiency. For this purpose, 125 dairy enterprises have been selected as samples by using stratified random sampling method to identify the enterprises to be examined. As a result, 8.05% of total energy input per cow was direct energy and 91.95% was indirect energy. 89.66% of total energy output is from milk production, 4.65% is from productive stock value (PSV) and 5.69% is cow manure. The energy use efficiency in the research area was found to be 1.07. Energy productivity in milk production has been calculated as 0.13 (kgMJ(-1)) when milk production per unit animal was taken into consideration. The specific energy value per dairy cow has been calculated as 7.42 MJ/kg. A non-parametric production function of DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) has been applied to optimize energy use in dairy enterprises. The average technical efficiency (TE) in the research area has been calculated as 0.921. In this sense, the amount of input needs to be reduced by 7.9% in order to achieve the same level of production. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.