Productivity and production efficiency among small scale irrigated sugarcane farmers in Niger state, Nigeria: a stochastic translog frontier function approach.

Abstract

The study examined productivity and production efficiency among small scale irrigated sugarcane farmers in Niger State, Nigeria using a stochastic translog frontier function. Data for the study were obtained using structured questionnaires administered to 100 randomly selected sugarcane farmers from Paiko and Gurara Local Government Areas of the State. Stochastic translog frontier production function was used to represent the production frontier of the small-scale irrigated sugarcane farms. The results showed a return to scale of 3.51 indicating an increasing return to scale and that small scale irrigated sugarcane production in the area was in stage I of the production region. The study also showed that the levels of technical efficiency ranged from 82.58% to 99.24% with mean of 95.39% which suggests that average irrigated sugarcane output falls 5% short of the maximum possible level. From the results obtained, although farmers were generally relatively efficient, they still have room to increase the efficiency in their farming activities as about 5 percent efficiency gap from optimum (100%) remains yet to be attained by all farmers. Therefore, in the short run there is room for increase in technical efficiencies on irrigated sugarcane farms in the study area. The result further showed that, farmers’ educational level, years of farming experience and access to extension service significantly influenced the farmers’ efficiency positively. It is recommended that relevant policies that would enhance the technical skill of the farmers and access to extension services should be evolved by the stakeholders.