Technical Efficiency of Cassava Production in Ardo-Kola Local Government Area of Taraba State, Nigeria

Abstract

— This study used stochastic frontier Analysis to estimate the technical efficiency of cassava production in Ardo-kola Local Government Area of Taraba state. A multi-stage sampling was employed in selecting 142 respondents in the study area. The maximum likelihood estimates of the stochastic frontier production function revealed that farm size, family labour, cassava cutting planting and fertilizer were significantly and positively related to cassava output. Technical efficiency (TE) scores ranged from 0.43 to 0.96 with a mean TE of 0.74, implying that there is a scope for increasing technical efficiency in cassava production by 0.26 in short run under current technology. The study proffered the following recommendations; That Cassava farmers should have access to extension agents to increase their probability of being productive and efficient, policy should be targeted to provide adequate training to extension agents to enhance their performance to their clientele.