Efficiency and Productivity of Farmers in Nigeria: A Study of Rice Farmers in North Central Nigeria

This study contributes to the agricultural productivity literature in developing countries and Nigeria especially by quantifying the level of efficiency for sample of rice farmers from North Central Zone of Nigeria. A stochastic efficiency decomposition frontier analysis was used to derive technical efficiency measures separately for rice under two production systems (upland and lowland systems). Average economic efficiency of 51.9 % and 55.4 % found for up land and lowland rice farmers respectively suggests that there is room for productivity gain for farms in the sample through better use of available resources given the state of technology. Gains in productivity growth have become increasingly important to Nigerians as demand for rice continue to increase due to population increase. Although, all the socio-economic variables tested against efficiency were significant at one level or the other there was no clear strategy of improving the relationship between them. One possible explanation for this finding is the existence of stage of developing threshold below which there is no consistent relationship between socioeconomic variables and productivity. The results suggest that rice farmers can still improve to reach such threshold in Nigeria. Hence, adoption of improved rice varieties, improvements in educational levels would be needed to go beyond this threshold before additional investments in human capital and other related factors.