Food Legume Crop Production Factor Efficiency: Measurement and Driving Factors in China—Evidence from 817 Households

Enhancing technical efficiency in food legume production is essential, since the scope for expanding factor inputs is limited under tightening resource constraints. Higher technical efficiency improves resource allocation, ensures food supply stability, and boosts farm income. To strengthen production performance, using survey data from 817 food legume farm households in five major producing regions of China in 2024, this study employs a two-stage DEA-Tobit model to measure farmers’ technical efficiency in food legume production and to empirically identify its driving factors. The results indicate that: (1) technical efficiency in food legume production shows pronounced regional disparities and substantial within-region heterogeneity; (2) technical efficiency in food legume production improves over time, yet substantial space for efficiency gains remains relative to other staple crops; (3) farm households located at different stages of returns to production inputs show distinct production and management patterns. (4) human capital accumulation, full-time farming status, and participation in food legume cooperative economic organizations exert significant positive effects on technical efficiency. Meanwhile, planting scale exhibits a significant inverted U-shaped relationship with technical efficiency. The findings provide household-level empirical evidence to explain disparities in technical efficiency and identify pathways for improving food legume production.