An Estimation of Resource Use Efficiency of Large Farmers in Punjab

Abstract

Wheat and paddy were the principal crops grown on the large areas of farms in Punjab. The results indicated that the variance parameters o2 and a have positive coefficient and were statistically significant at one per cent level. This provides statistical confirmation that the shortfall of the realized productivity from frontier was due to the technical efficiency and was mainly with in the control of the farmer. The technical inefficiency analysis indicated that there existed a considerable potential for increasing the yield of wheat and paddy on large farms at the existing level of resources and technology. The mean technical efficiency in wheat production on large farms came out to be 88.6, 94.8, and 89.5 per cent for Zone-I, Zone-II and Zone-III. The result signified that farmers of Zone-II did not have much scope to increase productivity of wheat through technical efficiency improvement. While large farmer of Zone-I and Zone-III can increase wheat yield upto11.4 and 10.5 per cent. The mean technical efficiency in paddy production on large farms comes out to be 84.6, 89.40, and 85.75 per cent for Zone-I, Zone-II and Zone-III which signified that the large farmer of all the zones can increase the paddy yield by 15.4, 10.60, and by 14.25 per cent in Zone-I, Zone-II and Zone-III respectively. This necessitates the proper management of variable inputs in all zones.