ANALYSIS OF TECHNICAL, ALLOCATIVE AND ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY OF RICE FARMERS IN EBONYI STATE, NIGERIA

Major obstacles to food security in Nigeria, is the low productivity of most staple food crops and the efficiency with which the farmers use the limited available inputs. These have threatened the effort of the Nigerian government towards food security. Therefore, this research work focused on the analysis of the technical, allocative and economic efficiency of rice farmers in Ebonyi state, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was employed to select 476 respondents for the study. Data were collected from primary source with the aid of structured questionnaire and field observations. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and stochastic frontier production function model. Results revealed that Ebonyi rice farmers were 86% technical efficiency, 63% allocative efficiency and 54% economic efficiency. The study concluded that there is room for improvement in the Ebonyi rice farmer's technical, allocative and economic efficiency and recommended that Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) of Ebonyi States and other agricultural based capacity development organizations that have the mandate of training the farmers should intensify effort in rice farmers training especially in the areas of how herbicides are used against abused or waste as herbicide negatively affect their production efficiency.