scholarly journals Rural Credit and Farms Efficiency: Modelling Farmers Credit Allocation Decisions, Evidences from Benin

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Comlan Hervé Sossou ◽  
Freddy Noma ◽  
Jacob A. Yabi

This paper analyses farmers’ credit allocation behaviors and their effects on technical efficiency. Data were collected from 476 farmers using the multistage sampling procedure. The stochastic frontier truncated-normal with conditional mean model is used to assess allocation schemes effects on technical efficiency. Tobit model reveals the impact of farmers’ sociodemographic characteristics on efficiency scores. Results reveal that farm revenue (about 2,262,566 Fcfa on average) is positively correlated with land acreage, quantity of labour, and costs of fertilizers and insecticides. Farmers’ behaviors respond to six schemes which are categorized in two allocations contexts: out-farm and in-farm allocations. The model shows that only scheme (e) positively impacts technical efficiency. This scheme refers to the decision to invest credit to purchase better quality of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and so forth. The positive effect of the scheme (c) may be significant under conditions of farmers’ education level improvement. Then, scheme (e) is a better investment for all farmers, but effect of credit allocation to buy agricultural materials is positive only for educated farmers. Efficiency scores are reduced by household size and gender of the household head. Therefore a household with more than 10 members and a woman as head is likely to not be technically efficient.

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-81
Author(s):  
AKM Abdullah Al Amin ◽  
M Saidur Rahman ◽  
MI Hossain

This article determines the impact of land fragmentation and soil fertility on Aus rice producers’ technical efficiency (TE) of Barisal district in Bangladesh. A total of 60 farm households from two villages were selected using stratified random sampling procedure. Detailed input and output data for the Aus were collected in May 2015. Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier model was used to address this TE. Results indicate that the mean TE was 0.61. Among the four land fragmentation indicators two were found to be statistically significant with anticipated signs. The positive effect of the number of plots on TE implies that variation effect exceeded the management effect and the average distance from plots to homestead indicating loss of time and inconvenience in farming management as well as inefficiencies in input use. The study also used two indicators of soil fertility (i.e., share of highly fertile land and share of not highly fertile land). Between these share of highly fertile land had positive impact on TE in rice productivity. Therefore, the study includes policy implications addressing the structural causes of land fragmentation and developing effective strategies to promote soil conservation.J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 14(1): 75-81, June 2016


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Surya Prasad Adhikari ◽  
Yuga Nath Ghimire ◽  
Krishna Prasad Timsina ◽  
Samaya Gairhe

Abstract The national average potato productivity is far below as compared to other neighbouring countries due to several production constraints. Variety and irrigation are the important factors to increase production. The aim of this study is to find the technical efficiency of potato production and to estimate the impact of variety type and irrigation on technical efficiency. A multistage random sampling procedure was employed to select 300 potato farmers from three districts of Nepal. The study used a stochastic frontier production function model to find the production elasticity coefficients of inputs, determinants of efficiency, and technical efficiency of potato farmers. Results showed that variety type and irrigation have a significant positive impact on the technical efficiency of potato production. Nepalese improved varieties adopter farmers were more efficient (73%) than Indian (66%) and local (59%) potato varieties. Likewise, Irrigated potato farming has higher efficiency (71%) than rainfed potato (61%) farming. The mean technical efficiency value of potato farmers was 69 per cent and farmers can increase it with better use of available resources. It is suggested that use of improved potato varieties and irrigation application along with proper amounts of inputs used help to improve technical efficiency of potato farmers.


Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 209
Author(s):  
Maria Raimondo ◽  
Francesco Caracciolo ◽  
Concetta Nazzaro ◽  
Giuseppe Marotta

While there is growing recognition of the positive role played by organic farming in the reduction of the negative externalities due to conventional agriculture, there is uncertainty about the effect of the latter on the economic performance of the farms. In this scenario, the present paper aims at investigating the effect of organic farming on technical efficiency in Italian olive farms. A cross-section dataset was analyzed through the stochastic frontier function, where the adoption of organic farming was explicitly modeled. Then, to obtain an unbiased estimate of the impact of organic farming on technical efficiency, a propensity score matching method was implemented. The findings reveal that organic farming increases technical efficiency in Italian olive farms by approximately 10%. The highest impact of organic farming is observed in small farms. As for the propensity to become organic, we found that the production and the direct sales of a higher quality of gross marketable output, as well as the intensity of labor and machines, increase the probability to adopt organic farming. Conversely, farm localization, the availability of family labor, and financial capital discourage conversion to the organic farming system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2708
Author(s):  
Ziqi Yin ◽  
Jianzhai Wu

In recent years, through the implementation of a series of policies, such as the delimitation of major grain producing areas and the construction of advantageous and characteristic agricultural product areas, the spatial distribution of agriculture in China has changed significantly; however, research on the impact of such changes on the efficiency of agricultural technology is still lacking. Taking 11 cities in Hebei Province as the research object, this study examines the spatial dependence of regional agricultural technical efficiency using the stochastic frontier analysis and spatial econometric analysis. The results show that the improvement in agricultural technical efficiency is evident in all cities in Hebei Province from 2008 to 2017, but there is scope for further improvement. Industrial agglomeration has statistical significance in improving the efficiency of agricultural technology. Further, there is an obvious spatial correlation and difference in agricultural technical efficiency. Optimizing the spatial distribution of agricultural production, promoting the innovation, development, and application of agricultural technology, and promoting the expansion of regional elements can contribute to improving agricultural technical efficiency.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 210-217
Author(s):  
Akintonde J. Oluwole ◽  
Akintaro O. Segun ◽  
Rahman S. Bayonle

The efficiency of any entrepreneur is a function of personal production skill, knowledge and experience acquired over time and exposure via training in the field of his or her enterprise focus. It is on this premise that this study examined the effect of extension training on technical efficiency of maize farmers in Ogbomoso Agricultural Zone, Oyo State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling procedure was adopted for the selection of One-hundred and Eighty-One (181) maize farmers, while structured and validated interview schedule was used to obtain necessary information from the sampled respondents. Data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. The mean age of sampled farmers was 48 years and majority (80.1%) of the farmers was male. The farmers with extension contact have access to different extension trainings on maize production in the study area. The average household sizes were 7 and 8, with the average farm sizes of 1.423ha and 1.417ha for both contact and non-contact maize farmers respectively. Those farmers with extension contact were found to be technically efficient than non-contact farmers. Significant relationship existed between some selected socio-economic characteristics of both sampled maize farmers and their maize output. The study therefore suggests the need to create more awareness on the roles of extension services on crop production among farmers and the authorities concern with extension service delivery should improve on the frequency of extension contact in order to encourage farmers' participation in extension activities in the study area and rural communities in Nigeria at large. Keywords: Extension training, technical efficiency, contact and non-contact maize farmers.


Author(s):  
Parul Singh ◽  
Kashika Arora ◽  
Areej Aftab Siddiqui

Purpose This paper aims to undertake the efficiency analysis in the form of stochastic frontier to estimate a Cobb–Douglas production function by controlling for the heterogeneity across Russian firms by including firm size, ownership, age, innovation activity and market competition. Design/methodology/approach During the peak period of Covid-19, certain firms witnessed either a decrease or increase in sales. Using this segregation of firms from World Bank’s Covid-19 impact surveys follow-up to the Enterprise Survey for Russia, this study empirically investigates the determinants of technical efficiency of these firms focusing on the role of government assistance. Findings The findings suggest that by segregating firms in terms of sales, different internal factors can enable in steering through pandemic situation besides just depending on external assistance. Originality/value One of the few papers to analyse the impact of the pandemic on Russian firms by considering World Bank Covid Survey.


2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thi Huyen Trang Dam ◽  
TS Amjath-Babu ◽  
Peter Zander ◽  
Klaus Müller

The purpose of our study is to evaluate the impact of saltwater intrusion on the productivity and technical efficiency (TE) of rice farms in Central Vietnam using the stochastic frontier (SF) production function. In contrast to existing studies, this research quantitatively analyses rice variety and season-differentiated impact of soil salinity (as measured by electrical conductivity (EC)) on the TE of rice production. The empirical results indicate that salinity induces significantly varying negative impacts on yield and technical inefficiency of rice farms depending on the salinity class, variety planted and the season. TE begins to sharply decline after reaching salinity class 3 (EC = 4–8 dS/m) and drops to zero under salinity class 4 (EC = 8–16 dS/m) unless salt-tolerant (ST) varieties are planted. A 1% increase in the EC level decreases rice yields by 0.24% in various SF models, while TE shows a cubic relationship with EC, with negative coefficients for linear and quadratic terms. A combination of farm plots consolidation, irrigation, integrated pest management, input optimisation and shifts in varietal selection can potentially offset the yield decline caused by saline intrusion for salinity classes 1 to 4, while adoption of ST varieties seems to be the best option for higher salinity classes over 4. These adaptation measures could also help farmers to avoid maladaptive options such as increased use of pesticide sprays to offset the yield losses due to soil salinity resulting from saline water intrusion. The insights offered by the study is applicable to coastal delta regions cultivating rice in whole of Asia and in other continents.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aschalew Shiferaw Belete

Abstract Background The Guji Zone in particular and Oromia region in general have a huge potential for crop production that can even contribute for the country as a whole in the struggle for achieving food security. Maize is Ethiopia’s largest cereal crop in terms of total production, acreage, and the number of farm holdings. It is one of the staple crops produced in the study area. However, the farm productivity per hectare is low compared to the national average which indicates the presence of farming inefficiency in the study area. Thus, this study was undertaken with the objective of estimating the level of farmers’ technical efficiency in maize production and identifying the factors which determine the variation in the level of technical efficiency among the farmers. Results This study was relied on the primary data collected from a sample of maize producing farm household of Adola Rede and Anna Sorra districts of the Guji Zone using a survey questionnaire. A simple random sampling technique was found appropriate for selecting the respondents, since the populations of these study area are homogeneous. The analysis was relied on a cross-sectional data collected from 234 sample farm households. A one-step stochastic frontier normal/truncated-normal model was used to estimate the farmers’ technical efficiency as well as to identify the determinants of yield per hectare of maize which was estimated by maximum-likelihood method. The empirical result indicates that there are large numbers of inefficient farmers in both districts. The estimated technical efficiency for maize producing farmers is equal to 69.03%. Besides, the current study revealed that 69.23% of maize producing farmers have been operating within a technical efficiency score interval equal to (0.5–0.75) in both districts. In addition, the maize yield per hectare in the study area is very low compared to the national average, i.e., the mean yield is 19.2 quintal per hectare. Moreover, the maximum-likelihood results show that gender of the head of the household, age of the head of the household, farm income, row planting, access to credit, number of active labor force, land size owned, access to improved seed and seed type used, and number of livestock were significantly determine the farmers technical inefficiency. Conclusion The results of the study revealed that there is an opportunity which is being squandered in maize production in the study area. For instance, with a given technology, it is possible to raise the maize yield per hectare by 30.07% in the study area. Thus, the government and any concerned stakeholders should facilitate access to improved seed and fertilizer, credit, farm technology, and short-term training. Besides, all stakeholders should work in a cooperative and organized manner to implement the full agricultural package on farm level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (80) ◽  
pp. 150-167
Author(s):  
José A. Pérez-Méndez ◽  
María Pérez-Urdiales ◽  
David Roibas

Purpose This paper aims to evaluate the impact of the subsidies established by Measure 123 of the Rural Development Policy on the productivity of a sample of agri-food and forestry companies in the region of Asturias over the period 2006-2009. Design/methodology/approach The authors estimate a stochastic frontier function which allows subsidies to be considered as affecting both the level of technical efficiency and technical progress. Findings The results show that while subsidies have a positive effect on the technical progress of companies in the agri-food industry, for the forestry industry, the effect materializes as an improvement in technical efficiency. Additionally, other factors affecting either, technical progress and technical efficiency were identified. Originality/value This study adopts a model that allows the separate identification of the effect of subsidies on the level of efficiency, on the one hand, and on the technical progress, on the other.


Author(s):  
Sokvibol Kea ◽  
Hua Li ◽  
Linvolak Pich

The aims of this study are to measure the technical efficiency (TE) of Cambodian household’s rice production and trying to determine its main influencing factors using the stochastic frontier production function. The study utilized primary data collected from 301 rice farmers in three selected districts of Battambang by structured questionnaires. The empirical results indicated the level of household rice output varied according to differences in the efficiency of the production processes. The mean TE is 0.34 which means that famers produce 34% of rice at best practice at the current level of production inputs and technology, indicates that rice output has the potential of being increased further by 66% at the same level of inputs if farmers had been technically efficient. Furthermore, between 2013-2015, TE of household’s rice production recorded -14.3% decline rate due to highly affected of drought during dry season of 2015. Moreover, evidence reveals that land, fertilizer, and pesticide are the major influencing input factors of household’s rice production, while disaster, education of household head, family size and other crops’ cultivated area are core influencing factors decreasing TE. Conversely, the main influencing factors increasing TE are irrigated area, number of plot area and sex of household head.


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