Technical Efficiency Of The Hatchery Operators In Fish Seed Production Farms In Two Selected Areas Of Bangladesh

This study is concerned with the estimation of technical efficiency of the hatchery operators producing fish seeds. Using 50 samples comprising 25 each from Jessore and Mymensingh districts, the study has used the Frontier 4.1 package to estimate the technical efficiency of the hatchery operators. A Cobb-Douglas production function with six quantitative variables namely, water area, human labour, feed, fertilizer, number of brood fish and proportion of hormone dose given to female brood and a regional dummy for the stochastic frontier and a linear technical inefficiency function with 4 variables: education, experience, number of training received and salary of the operators were jointly estimated. Several hypotheses tests were performed using Log-Likelihood Ratio Test. Some policy suggestions were also provided. The mean technical efficiency of the hatchery operators was 61 percent. Technical efficiencies were not found to be skewed towards higher or lower scores, rather concentrated on the 20'h, 30`h, 80`h , and 90`h percentiles. Hypothesis of no existence of inefficiency effect was rejected establishing that significant inefficiency exists. More than one-third of the seed production potential remains unutilized. Utilizing the unexploited production potential of the fish seed producers rather than establishing new farms and hatcheries appears to be the pertinent policy. Training of the farm/hatchery operators can help achieve the unexploited potential.