Management and climatic pressure on the efficiency performance of snail farming in Nigeria: A trend stochastic frontier approach from 2019 – 2021

Abstract

Livestock farming in Nigeria is having its share of climate variability problems which can affect its sustainability, snail is one of the livestock products that are highly susceptible to climate issues because they are subjected to several limitations like a longer period of hibernation and heat stress which increases mortality. Due to the health benefit of snail meat that has made its production very lucrative, it became necessary to conduct this study on the management and climatic pressure on the efficiency performance of snail farmers by adopting a stochastic frontier approach to operationalize the stated objectives using secondary data. The focus of the study was to establish the technical and profit efficiency of the farmers over the time trend of production. However, the study found that snail farming recorded more technical efficiency (0.940) value in 2021, whereas 2019 recorded the least technical efficiency (0.714). With this high TE record in 2021, the study caveat that farmers are producing 6% below optimal production capacity which must be closed up in a short while to stay efficient in the sector. More so, information about the profit efficiency (PE) revealed that before an average farmer attains the level of most profit-efficient snail farming, the farmer would have to up his/her profit by 25.3% (2019), 33.7% (2020), and 11.9% (2021). The study also found that the most profit-inefficient farmer would have to improve their profit by 66.8% (2019), 99.8% (2020), and 72.4% (2021) before they can come up to the most profit-efficient farmer. The study also revealed that educated farmers are more technically efficient. Interestingly, the study revealed that snail farming in the study is stock, fumigant, feed, labour, and capital dependent. The study also observed that humidity and rainfall are the climate variability that negatively affects the TE of the farmers. The study, therefore, recommends that farmers should adopt climate-friendly agriculture as a way to survive the variability that threatens food security.