Based on the field survey of 453 samples of potato farmers in three mountainous area in Gansu,Chongqing and Guangdong,this paper calculates the technical efficiency of potato production farmers in different scales in typical mountainous areas with the employment of transcendental logarithmic SFA model.Furthermore,a Tobit model is also applied here to explore the potential factors influencing the potato technical efficiency.The results indicate that:(1) The potato technical efficiency in China is at a lower level as a whole,which still leaves a possibility of 31.6% to increase.(2) Among the three scales (namely large,medium and small) of potato planting,the highest level of potato technical efficiency occurs at medium scale,closely followed by the small scale and the large scale.(3) Land fragmentation,labor forces,the degree of specialization of famers,participation in cooperatives and cognitive level positively influence the potato technical efficiency,while land scale shows a negative effect.Thus,countermeasures are proposed from three perspectives,namely local government,new-type manager and potato farmer to promote the potato technical efficiency in mountainous areas,and to facilitate the organic linking between the developments of small farmers and modern agriculture.