Tiamiyu S.A., Akintola J.O., Rahji M.A.Y.
Abstract
The technical, allocative and economic efficiencies of farmers who grow the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) were examined
empirically in this study. The probabilistic frontier production function was used to predict the farm level technical
efficiency which serves as basis for estimating the economic efficiency. Results showed that rice output is inelastic
with respect to herbicide (0.04), land (0.25), fertilizer (0.31), seed (0.33), labour (0.46) and statistically
significant (P < 0.01). Rice farms in the study area exhibits increasing positive return to scale (1.3), indicating
that farmers were not efficient in allocating their resources. The average technical, allocative and economic
efficiency indices of 0.65 (±0.059), 0.59 (±0.111) and 0.39 (±0.094) respectively, indicate considerable room for
increase productivity of rice farmers through improvement in their production efficiencies. Efficiency indices were
significantly (P < 0.05) affected by age of farmer, farming experience, extension contact and credit use. Improvement
of those factors that significantly affect efficiency indices is recommended.
Key words:
upland rice productivity, New Rice for Africa, efficiency indices, probabilistic frontier approach, Savanna zone, Nigeria