ABSTRACT

The technical, allocative and economic efficiencies of commercial vegetable production in Akwa Ibom State were evaluated. A multi-stage random sampling technique was adopted in selecting 150 vegetable farmers made up of 60 waterleaf, 60 pumpkin and 30 garden egg farmers from the six agricultural zones of the State. A cost-route approach was used to obtain information on the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers, output, inputs and their prices. Descriptive statistics such as means, frequencies and percentages were used in presenting the data on the socio-economic variables. The Cobb-Douglas and transcendental logarithmic functional forms of the stochastic frontier production and cost functions were estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation technique to obtain the technical, allocative and economic efficiencies of the farmers. The generalized likelihood ratio estimation was used in testing hypotheses of full technical, allocative and economic efficiencies while t-test statistics was employed in testing their determinants. Socio-economic determinants influencing efficiencies were also studied. The results showed that technical efficiency was influenced by farm size, labour, fertilizer and depreciation on capital inputs while major determinarits were education, farm experience, extension visit and farm size. Economic efficiency was influenced by land rent, price of seeds, wage rate, price of agro-chemicals, price of other inputs and depreciation on capital inputs. Allocative efficiency was found to be determined by experience, access to credit and farm size. The Cobb-Douglas and Translog Stochastic frontier functional forms were adjudged the best fit for the technical and economic efficiencies respectively based on the high values of log-likelihood functions, number of significant variables and appropriateness of a priori expectations. The result showed that farmers were not technically, allocatively and economically efficient. The null hypotheses of full technical, allocative and economic efficiencies were rejected which implied that there was room for efficiency growth. The mean efficiency of 81%, 61%, and 63% was recorded for technical, allocative and economic efficiency respectively and as such the average vegetable farmer would require cost savings of 18%, 38% and 36% respectively in order to attain the level of the most technically, allocatively and economically efficient farmer among he respondents. Given the fact that there was still room for efficiency, growth intensification of extension services and credit accessibility are among the policy options suggested by the study.