DETERMINANTS OF PRODUCTIVITY EFFICIENCY OF SMALL SCALE MAIZE FARMERS IN SOUTHWEST, NIGERIA: A TRANSLOG FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

Abstract

The study assessed the productivity of small-scale maize farmers in South-West, Nigeria. One hundred and eighty respondents were selected using a multistage sampling technique. Primary data were collected through the administration of a well-structured questionnaire and analyzed using a combination of descriptive statistics, stochastic frontier translog cost, and production function analyses and regression model. Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Stochastic Frontier Translog Production Function results showed that the coefficients of labour, fertilizer, farm size and seed had significant effect on the technical efficiency of maize farmers in the study area. Among the second order coefficients, the results revealed that only the coefficient of agrochemicals had a significant positive effect on the technical efficiency. However, some interactive coefficients were significant, implying that, some specified variables combined to cause significant changes in the technical efficiency of maize farmers. Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Stochastic Frontier Translog Cost showed that the price of seed, fertilizer, agrochemicals, implements and price of labour had a significant effect on the total cost of production. The returns-to-scale was 1.73, indicating that the maize farmers were operating at increasing returns-to-scale. The results of allocative efficiency measurement showed that the allocative efficiency varied widely across maize production, ranging between 0.41 and 1.00 with the mean of 68% implying that, in the short run, there is possibility of increasing allocative efficiency in maize production of farmers in the study area by 32% if they would adopt the technology and production techniques currently used by the most efficient farmer. These findings demonstrated the need to strengthen policies that expose farmers to adult literacy classes and training programmes to reduce the level of inefficiency in resource use in the study area.