ANALYSIS OF TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY IN SOLE YAM PRODUCTION AMONG FARMERS IN SOUTHERN ADAMAWA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study analyzed technical efficiency in sole yam production among farmers in southern Adamawa State, Nigeria. Primary data were obtained from 298 respondents, using multi-stage purposive and simple random sampling procedure. Data were analyzed using stochastic frontier production model. Results revealed that the sigma squared ( ) was 0.016 and statistically different from zero at 1% probability level, indicating a good fit and correctness of the distributional form assumed for the composite error term. Variance ratio was estimated at 0.866 and statistically significant at 1% probability level, suggesting that the existence of technical inefficiency among the farmers accounted for 87% variation in the output level of these farmers. Findings indicated that there was scope to increase the technical efficiency of sole yam production by 15% in the short run, since the mean technical efficiency (TE) of the farmers was estimated at 0.85, with 0.67 as minimum and 0.96 as the maximum. The technical efficiency differentials between the technically most efficient farmer and the technically least efficient farmer was 29%, indicating a wide gap. The coefficients of farm size, fertilizer, yam seed/setts and agro-chemicals had the expected positive sign, except hired labour and family labour, which had negative coefficients. This indicated that more output would be obtained from the use of additional quantities of these inputs ceteris paribus. The return to scale in the technical efficiency of sole yam was 0.965, indicating decreasing return to scale. This however, suggested that the proportionate change in output is less than that of the input and production was said to be inelastic. The return to scale of 0.965 showed that the farmers operated at the rational stage of the production function.