Technical and resource-use-efficiency among smallholder rice farmers in Northern Ghana

Abstract

This study seeks to estimate technical and resource-use efficiency in the Northern Region. Multistage sampling technique was used to collect cross-sectional data from 126 smallholder rice farmers in Tolon District of Northern Region, Ghana. The stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) was used to analyse the driving factors of rice output and measure the technical efficiency level of farmers while the marginal value product–marginal factor cost (MVP-MFC) approach was used to estimate the efficiency of resource use in rice production. The results from the SFA show that, apart from weedicide, factors such as farm size, quantity of weedicide, and fertiliser used have positive effects on output of rice. However, apart from farm size, factors such as weedicide, fertiliser, and seed were overutilised in production. Technical efficient varied widely among rice farmers, ranging from 11% to 98% with a mean of 75%. Technical inefficient of farmers was influenced by age, extension, household size, years of education, and credit. The study recommends that a farm-level policy directed towards the stimulation of extension work through motivation to give the rural farm households the needed training on farm management to improve productivity.