Resource-Use Efficiency And Production Constraints Among Cassava Farmers in Nigeria: Insight, Linkage and Pathway

Maximum Likelihood Estimate (MLE) of efficiency in agricultural production, specifically crop subsector, determines the efficiency level of households in their farming activities. If accessible, farmers in developing countries like Nigeria do not use all potential technological resources, thus making inefficient decisions in their agricultural activities. This paper therefore made effort to measure the technical efficiency (TE) of cassava production, identified drivers of technical efficiency and production constraints facing cassava farmers in Nigeria. Using cross sectional farm level data from cassava farming households in Nigeria, the study employed Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) in the Cobb-Douglas production function, Tobit regression, Benefit-cost ratio to achieve the objectives of the study. The calculated technical efficiency in the study was around 65.1 percent. The estimated variance parameter of the model (?) was 0.92 which implies that about 92 per cent of the variation in cassava output was due to farmers’ practices which comprise all variables. The study showed that there was gross inefficiency in the allocation of productive resources among cassava farmers in Oyo state. Most of these resources are over-utilized implying a sub-optimal utilization of resources. The study demonstrated that the key factors significantly influencing technical efficiency levels are years of production, size of land cultivated, household size, variety of cassava planted, total number of stem cutting used for planting and quantity of agrochemicals used per hectare. The allocative efficiency measurement shows that most of the resources were sub-optimally utilized. Meanwhile, high cost of inputs (such as labor) were identified as key constraints for cassava production in the study area. This study therefore suggest that economic efficiency and enterprise productivity will improve if government broadens the scope on provision of soft loans, adequate subsidized farm inputs (like agro- chemicals). This will improve increase income, food and nutrition security for the cassava farming households in Nigeria. Additionally, in order to achieve optimality in resource allocation, there is need introduce and encourage usage of technologies that can replace or reduce the use of inputs with high cost in the cassava production process. Hence, this will raise the productivity of resources, increase output and consequently improve revenue and net returns.