Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture No. 2/06
Cropping system, technical efficiency and policy options: a stochastic frontier analysis of Nigerian small-scale farmers
Igbekele A. Ajibefun
Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria
Abstract
Questions are being raised about the ability of Nigerian small-scale
farmers to meet the challenges of increasing food demand, given that
these farmers, who constitute over 90% of the farming population,
depend on traditional cropping system. This study was carried out to
empirically determine the influence of cropping systems and farmers’
socio-economic factors on their technical efficiency and policy options
available for raising the current level of efficiency of the farmers.
Using the stochastic frontier production function, data collected on
200 small-scale food crop farmers were analyzed. The production
technology of the farmers was modeled on the basis of the cropping
systems adopted. The results show that farmers under mono cropping
system have higher variability in farm income than farmers under
multiple cropping system. The hypothesis of constant returns-to-scale
cannot be rejected for all the farm categories. The results however
show that the mono croppers are more technically efficient, with mean
technical efficiency varying from 0.70 to 0.76, while multiple croppers
have a mean technical efficiency of 0.53. The study shows that
education; farming experience; credit; age and family size have
significant influences on the level of technical efficiency of farmers
under different cropping systems. The results of test of hypothesis
show that the mean technical efficiency of farmers under pure stand is
significantly greater than the mean technical efficiency of farmers
under multiple cropping system.
Keywords: cropping system, technical efficiency, small-scale farmers, policy options, Nigeria
JEL: Q 12, Q 18, Q 19
Vol. 45 (2006), No. 2: 145-169