Return to scale and determinants of farm level technical inefficiency among small scale yam based farmers in Niger state, Nigeria: implications for food security

Abstract

The study examined the implication of resource productivity and farm level technical inefficiency in yam production on food security in Niger state, Nigeria. Data used for the study were obtained using structured questionnaire administered to 100 randomly selected yam based farmers from Edati and Munyan Local Government Areas of the state. Stochastic frontier production function was used to represent the production frontier of the small scale yam based farms. The result showed the return to scale of 1.686 indicating an increasing return to scale and that small scale yam production in the area was in stage I of the production function. The study also showed that the levels of technical efficiency ranged from 31.72% to 95.10% with mean of 75.64% which suggests that average yam output falls 24.46% 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 24 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 yam based 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.