Abstract:

[Objective] Forestry specialized cooperatives (FSC) is one of the new combining forms of production factors, the quantity had got a large increase after cooperative law took effect, the operating efficiency of FSC focus upon public attention when the FSC was encouraged by policy. This paper tries to provide the first hand material and data about FSC by diagnosing the input, output and efficiency of FSC in Fujian province, which can also provide the decision basis for the development of FSC and forestry. [Method] Based on the theory of " Triple Bottom Line" proposed by John Elkington, this paper takes example by triple bottom line index model of forestry specialized cooperative offered by Jiarong Zhao, then evaluates an output indicator system of FSC; takes example by production function of Douglas, then builds an input indicator system of FSC from labor, land, capital, technique and institution. This paper adopts data envelopment analysis (DEA) proposed by A. Charnes and W. W. Cooper to analyze the economic, social and ecological efficiency of FSC. This paper choose those cooperatives which set timber forest as their management object, these cooperatives usually located at Nanping and Sanming city, then collected the data of FSC which were chose through step sampling by using questionnaire. [Result] The analysis of input indicator shows that the FSCs face several problems, which are the outflow of labor force population in country, the increasing of fund demand, few technology input, the difficulty of getting the cutting quota and forest land circulation. The analysis of output indicator shows that there are three benefit of FSCs, The FSCs present obvious social benefits and ecological benefits. The measurements of three efficiencies of FSCs show that the mean value of economic efficiency is 0.834, 36.76% of FSCs are at the stage of increasing returns to scale, their average economic efficiency is 0.549. The mean value of ecological efficiency is 0.99, ecological scale efficiency is 0.99; the FSCs that did not reach DEA effectiveness are at the stage of increasing returns to scale. The mean value of social efficiency is 0.877, social scale efficiency is 0.877, 32.35% of FSCs are not DEA valid, their average social efficiency is 0.619, and are at the stage of increasing returns to scale. [Conclusion] The results of this research show that the three benefits are not unified, the ecological and social efficiencies are higher than economic efficiency. If they can't be internalized to economic income of FSCs, the ecological and social performance will be damaged. The three benefits can only been reached when the three performance were unified and effective system had been established. The government should increase the support of public finance to internalize the ecological and social performance of FSCs.

Key words: forestry specialized cooperatives, efficiency, data envelopment analysis(DEA), input-output analysis