Technical Efficiency of Rice-Producing Households in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam

Abstract

Technical Effi ciency (TE) is an estimation of the ability of a household to produce the maximum output with the given inputs. It is usually estimated by using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). Data collected from 261 rice-farming households in the Mekong Delta were used in the empirical analysis. Results show that the average TE among the surveyed households is above 76 percent in both the Constant (CRS) and the Variable Returns to Scale (VRS). The average scale effi ciency score for these rice-producing households is nearly one. The determinants of the quantity of rice or yields and of the TE for the households are signifi cantly associated with some variables such as the plot size, seed, and hired labor cost. However, technical ineffi ciency signifi cantly depends on the farmers’ farming experience and adoption of advanced farming practices.