Farm Level Technical Efficiency of Paddy Production in Andhra Pradesh: An Empirical Evidence from the Cost of Cultivation Survey Data

Abstract

The study calculated technical efficiency, Data Envelopment Analysis technique was employed, one of the non-parametric linear programing techniques to estimate the farm level technical efficiency of paddy production in Andhra Pradesh. This secondary data set contained 541 paddy producing farms/units across Andhra Pradesh state under five agro climatic zones viz North coastal, Godavari, Krishna, Southern and Scarce rainfall zones was studied. The results showed that the overall technical efficiency of the entire sample is 86.8 per cent inferring that about 13 per cent of the potential paddy yield is lost because of technical inefficiency in Andhra Pradesh. The yield gap was found to be 981.10 kg/ha in Godavari zone and a minimum yield gap of 335 kg/ha in North coastal zone with an average yield gap of 663 kg/ha for Andhra Pradesh indicating domestic paddy production could be significantly increased only by improving farmers practices with the current amount of resource they are using. The study suggested that there should be exposure to improved technologies, frequent trainings and experience sharing mechanisms with efficient resource management practices.