ABSTRACT

This research was carried out in Delta State. A multi-stage sampling technique was adopted in collecting cross-sectional data from 120 respondents. The broad objective of the study was to determine technical, allocative and economic efficiency of fish farmers in Delta State. Descriptive statistics such as percentages, mean, and frequency were used in discussing the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers. Maximum Likelihood estimates of Cobb-Douglas and translog stochastic production and cost Functions were used to determine production and cost of the farmers respectively .Maximum likelihood estimate of translog production function showed that labour and number of fingerlings had a negative and significant relationship with the output. Capital had a positive and significant relationship with output. Nine of the second order coefficients were significant. The diagnostic statistics were significant at 1%. Age, level of education, pond area had negative influence on technical efficiency while gender had a positive influence on technical efficiency. Maximum likelihood estimates of Cobb- Douglas stochastic cost flinction showed that rent on pond, cost of fingerlings, capital inputs, and output had a positive and significant relationship with cost of production. Wage rate had a negative and significant relationship with cost .Level of education farming experience ,and family size had a positive relationship with economic efficiency while age and credit status had a negative and significant relationship with economic efficiency. Level of education, farming experience, extension visits, and family size had a positive and significant relationship with aliocative efficiency while age had a negative influence on allocative efficiency. Teelmical efficiency estimates from the frontier were used to estimate technical efficiency of the farmers while economic efficiency estimates from the frontier were used to estimate the economic efficiency. Economic efficiency was divided by technical efficiency estimates to get the allocative efficiency. The mean technical efficiency was 63%, 96.5% was the highest technical efficiency while 22.9%was the least technical efficiency. The mean allocative efficiency was 78.9%,maximum allocative efficiency was 99.4% and minimum was 30.1%.The mean economic efficiency was 63.95%, maximum was 94.5% and minimum was 18.1%. Fish farmers had Return to Scale of -0.2 which indicated a decreasing return to scale. For I unit increase in inputs there was 0.2 units decrease in output. Fish farmers in Delta State were not fully allocatively efficient. Generalized likelihood — Ratio result showed that fish farmers were not technically and economically efficient .ANOVA result showed that there was no significant difference in technical and economic efficiency of fish farmers among Zones.