An Analysis of Management Efficiency of the Farms which Produce Edible Insects using Data Envelopment Analysis

Meal-worms, protaetia brevitarsis seulensis larvae, adult crickets and beetle larvae were newly registered on Korean Food Standards Codex as food in 2016. Since then, the number of farmers producing edible insects began to explode, and edible insects were expected to be the most promising market in the insect industry. However, the edible insect-producing farmers has been suffered financially since edible insect sales have started to decline in 2018. So, this study will analyze management efficiency of the edible insect-producing farms using Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) to minimize the financial damage of the farms. And the purpose of this study is to suggest the directions of policy on edible insects through DEA results. Followings are the directions of policy on edible insects as a result of this study. First, the result shows that meal-worm-producing farms manage their farms most efficiently among the edible insect-producing farms. So, if consumer demand on meal-worm only increase, meal-worm market will be the most stable market. To increase the demand on meal-worm, a consumption monitoring system for meal-worms should be established, and the consumers preferred form of intake should be identified and supplied. Second, protaetia brevitarsis seulensis larvae farms were figured out to be the most inconsistent production methods or processes. In other words, this insect is the most differentiated among edible insects. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a strategy for segmented market by identifying consumers preference attributes(e.g, price or nutrition). Third, as adult cricket-producing farms were shown to be less efficient due to their low overall input, the governments financial support for insect-farms should be made more active for farmers who produce adult crickets than other insects.N