ABSTRACT

The technical efficiency between organic and inorganic fertilizer utilization in Abia State was evaluated. The objective of the study was to evaluate the efficiency of organic and inorganic fertilizer utilization by farmers in Abia State. A multi-stage random sampling technique was adopted in selecting 60 respondents in the state. Descriptive statistics such as means, frequencies and percentages were used in presenting the data on the socioeconomic variables. The Cobb-Douglas functional form of the stochastic frontier production functions were estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation technique to obtain the technical efficiency of the farmers. The result indicated that majority of the fanners were females (61.7%), majority of whom are more than 50 years of age (26%). A larger percentage (63.3%) had little or no education. The result showed that technical efficiency was influenced by farm size, labour, fertilizer, manure, stems used. The major determinants were age, farm size, family size, fertilizer use or manure, credit access, membership of cooperatives societies and adoption of technology. The results of the Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier model showed that farmers who used inorganic fertilizer are more technically efficient than the organic fertilizer farmers. The estimated mean technical efficiencies for organic fertilizer farmers was 0.64 (64%), while that of inorganic fertilizer farmers was 0.66 (66%). Further analysis showed that farmers in both categories were operating at a point of increasing return to scale, while the sum of elasticity's was 2.62 for the farmers using inorganic fertilizer and 2.05 for farmers who used organic fertilizer. The constraints are poor and inefficient fertilizer supply and distribution system especially in upland countries make it unavailable to farmers as at when it is needed; packaging of fertilizer in large sizes (50kg) makes it difficult with small plots to buy it. It was therefore recommended that policy attention should be directed towards providing labour saving techniques to its farm operations and government should facilitate the distribution and use of fertilizer.