Impact of Land Fragmentation and Soil Fertility on Rice Producers' Technical Efficiency: An Empirical Study in Bangladesh

Abstract

This study estimates a translog stochastic production function to examine the impact of land fragmentation and soil fertility on rice producers’ technical efficiency (TE) in Bangladesh. Primary data has been collected for Boro (dry) seasons rice production from 180 farm households using multistage stratified random sampling procedure in May 2015. In dry season, rice productivity displayed much variability in TE ranging from 14.02 to 96.18 per cent with mean technical efficiency of 82 per cent. This indicates that farmers operate 18 per cent below the production frontier and there is enough room to increase yields about 471.07 kg per farm. The results suggest that among the four land fragmentation indicators, the number of plots and average plot size had negative effects on TE. A large distance from main road to plots was observed to have a statistically significant negative impact on TE. Soil fertility had positive impact on TE in Boro rice productivity. Policy implications include addressing the structural causes of land fragmentation and developing effective strategies to promote soil conservation