Technical and Allocative Efficiency of Rice Production in Yobe State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study was designed to analyze the Technical and Allocative Efficiency of rice production in Yobe State, Nigeria. A multi stage sampling procedure was used to collect primary data from 110 rice farmers in the study area. The data was collected with the aid of well-structured questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics and stochastic frontier functions. The results indicated that over 97% of the farmers were within the productive mean age of 33years. Only 3% of the respondents had no formal education. Land acquisition was mainly (54.5%) through inheritance while the average farm size was 2 hectares. The years of rice production experience, years of schooling, years spent as member in farmers‟ cooperative, and farm size were statistically significant factors that influenced technical and allocative inefficiencies. The predicted technical efficiencies (TE) ranged between 0.60 and 1.00 with a mean TE of 0.9000 in the below. The wide variation shows possibility for improvement by some farmers. The result revealed that 40.0% of the respondents fell at the range of 0.80-0.89%, 28.2% at the range of 0.90-1.00%, 23.6% fell at the range of 0.70-0.79% and 8.18% fell at the range of 0.60-0.69%. The result revealed that majority of the respondent fell at the range of 0.80- 0.89%. The major constraints that hindered rice farmers from achieving their full production potentials were low output prices, high cost of inputs, pests and diseases, inadequate credit facilities and marketing problems. The study therefore recommended among others that farmers‟ affordability and accessibility to fertilizer, improved rice seeds, extension services and credit facilities should be enhanced for effective achievement of self-sufficiency in rice production and for total import substitution.