Authors : O.C. Ajewole and J.A. Folayan
Abstract: This study was conducted to analyze the potential for improving production efficiencies of farmers and to identify factors that influence such efficiencies in dry season leaf vegetable production in Ekiti State, Nigeria. A cross sectional data were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using a stochastic frontier production function model. The study revealed that about 54.40% of the farmers were 70% and above efficient. The return to scale of 1.112 was obtained indicating that the studied farmers were operating in stage 1 of the production surface (increasing return to scale). Household size, level of education, credit accessibility and extension visits were all found to contribute positively to technical efficiency while age, farming experience and off farm income reduces technical efficiency. The result further show that there exist opportunity to increase technical efficiency and productivity at the present level of inputs.
O.C. Ajewole and J.A. Folayan , 2008. Stochastic Frontier Analysis of Technical Efficiency in Dry Season Leaf Vegetable Production among Smallholders in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Agricultural Journal, 3: 252-257.