Comparative Analysis of Technical Efficiency of Rice Farmers under Public and Private Land Administration in Dadinkowa Irrigation Scheme Area of Gombe and Borno States, Nigeria

Abstract

This study analyzed the technical efficiency of rice farmers in Dadinkowa Irrigation Scheme (DKIS) area of Gombe and Borno States, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 400 rice farmers under irrigation farming, who provided data by means of structured interview. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze data. Specifically, descriptive statistics was used to describe socio-economic characteristics of respondents, Stochastic frontier model was used to estimate the technical efficiency of rice farmers. The stochastic production function showed that the determinants of rice irrigation farming in the study area were: farm size (0.25), labor (0.36), education (-0.49), transportation (0.0011) and rental cost (0.0095) were significant at 5, 1, 10, 1 and 5% level of probability respectively for farmers in DKIS. In Integrated Savanna Vegetables and Fruits Canning Factory (VEGFRU), farm size (0.45) and transportation cost (0.003) were found to be significant at 1 and 10% level of probability respectively. In National Institute of Horticultural Research and Training (NIHORT) and College of Horticulture (NIHORT and CoH), household size (-0.025) and non-farm income (3.3) were both significant at 5% level of probability. Lastly, quantity of seed (0.16), quantity of fertilizer (0.38), education (-0.04), household size (-0.014) and transportation cost (0.0001), were found to be significant at 5, 1, 10, 5 and 1 % level of probability respectively in local land authority. The study also revealed that the mean technical efficiencies were 0.88, 0.94, 0.86 and 0.65 for DKIS, VEGFRU, NIHORT/CoH and local authority respectively. This means that farmers were technically efficient given the current level of technology. From the result, farmers under the land administration authorities of VEGFRU are more technically efficient than DKIS, followed by NIHORT /CoH), and lastly local authority. This may be explained by the important role played by DKIS office in terms of proximity and supports to rice farmers. The returns to scale were respectively 0.708, 0.421, 0.52 and 0.566 for DKIS, VEGFRU, NIHORT/CoH and Local authority. This showed that rice farmers operated at the rational stage of production (diminishing return). This implies that the technical efficiency of rice farmers under irrigation farming in the study area could be increased by 0.12, 0.6, 0.14 and 0.35 respectively through the use of available resources given the current level of technology and better extension services. And rice farmers can expand their production through additional use of inputs It was recommended that Government should accelerate the implementation of land consolidation in order to reduce the effect of land fragmentation and to improve the efficiency of rice farmers under irrigation farming, especially in DKIS and VEGFRU, whereby the farm size has significant effect on technical efficiency. In DKIS and Local authority, Government should strengthen formal education among the rice farmers, and facilitate the transportation system for moving farm output from farm to market at affordable cost in the study area.