| Abstract | The apple production sector of Balochistan province of Pakistan is confronted with the chronic constraint of low output per unit of input resulting low living standards and low incomes. Notwithstanding the production aspect, apple marketing has never been adequately focussed as well. This study made an effort to bridge research gap on this potential crop in the province by investigating the yield-gap and technical, cost and marketing efficiency of 181 officially designated small-scale apple farmers then explored factors that underlie differences in production and marketing inefficiency. The apple yield gap was analyzed at two different stages. Firstly, the differences between yields obtained at a local experimental station (YGE) and yields observed at farmers' fields. Secondly, within farmers yield gap (YGM) such that the maximum observed in the sample were considered as potential yields. Afterwards, truncated regression was used to regress factors affecting yield gap within apple farms. A two-stage input-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology was employed to evaluate technical and cost efficiency followed by truncated bootstrapped regression framework to analyze the correlative determinants to the technical- and cost efficiency. Apple marketing channels and marketing performance were scrutinized by the functionaries' role and behavior, interaction among them, price setting strategies, income sharing, variation in price, marketing costs and marketing margins, and factors associated with the choice of marketing strategies and price variation. The average farm level yields of commonly grown Katja and Red-delicious apple varieties were below one-third of the experimental station yields, leading to an average yield gap YGE of about 5900 and 6454 kg acre·1 , respectively. Pertaining to a relatively homogenous bio-physical environment, average farmer yield was slightly more than half of the maximum farmer yield for both apple varieties. Yield gap was affected by landholding size, better farming practices and access to credit, extension services and trainings. The apple fa1mers in the study area were more cost inefficient than technically inefficient. Average technical, scale and cost efficiencies of larger landholders were higher than medium and small landholders. Analysis indicated that there is still ample scope for inefficient sample fa1mers to reduce the input use by 33% without compromising the given yield level. Maximum contributions to the total input savings were from the use of urea, fa1m yard manure (FYM) and labor-use. Farmer's experience, farm ownership, irrigation constraints, and fa1mer's access to trainings, credit and extension services significantly affected apple farmers' production efficiency. The marketing system, dominated by the pre-harvest contractors and commission-agents, was attributed to, primarily, lack of access to formal credit and crop insurance. Marketing margin analysis revealed that fa1mers received about 56% of wholesale price share for both varieties suggesting that fa1mers were receiving, to some extent, a fair share of the price against the traditional belief that they were being exploited by the inte1mediaries. Variation in apple price depended on amount of apple sold, access to price information, location of market center, place of fmit sale, group marketing strategy and farmer's experience. No apparent services or policies could be seen for marketing efficiency improvement of apple farmers in the study area. Based on the findings of this study, strategies are suggested to enhancing production and marketing efficiencies by farmers' capacity development through effective extension services and trainings, provision of adequate credit and crop insurance and provision of an effective market information system in order to accurate and timely dissemination of information on price, demand and supply of apple in the wholesale market. |