Does Education and Farming Experience Affect Technical Efficiency of Rice Crop Growers? Evidence from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

Education and farming experience of farmers are considered the most important factors in allocation of inputs during production process. This study, therefore, aimed at evaluating effect of education and farming experience on technical efficiency of rice farmers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. A sample of 300 rice growers was drawn randomly using a multistage sampling procedure through a well-organized pretested interview schedule. Stochastic frontier models (SFM-1 and SFM-2) were utilized to investigate effects of farm inputs and socioeconomic factors on rice production. Results of SFM-1 explicated that all the regressors except irrigation numbers were highly significant with the estimated coefficients of 0.369, 0.047, 0.060, 0.246 and 0.098 for labor hours, tractor hours, chemicals, urea and irrigation numbers respectively. Results of inefficiency’s model exposed that education and farming experience had a significant and adverse influence on technical inefficiency, age had a positive significant effect on farmers’ technical inefficiency whereas tenancy status and primary source of income were found insignificant. The mean technical efficiency of the sampled farmers was estimated at 0.74, ranged between 0.52 and 0.99. The estimated production model showed the highest coefficients for labor hours and urea, it is therefore suggested that rice growers can rise their rice output by increasing labor hours and urea application during the production process. Inefficiency effects model showed a negative and significant relationship of inefficiency with farmers’ education and farming experience, so government is recommended to facilitate farmers with formal as well as informal education and proper trainings regarding rice farming for efficient utilization of available resources