Technical Inefficiency Effects Among Paddy Farmers in the Villages of the ‘Office du Niger’, Mali, West Africa

A stochastic frontier production function incorporating a model for technical inefficiency effects (Battese and Coelli, 1995) is applied to field data on paddy farmers from 29 villages in the ‘Office du Niger’ in Mali. Four ‘conventional factors’ (land, labor, fertilizer and machinery) are considered as inputs of production. The technical inefficiency effects in the stochastic frontier were related to firm-specific variables, institutional factors, social organisation, ecological considerations and health factors. Data were obtained from an economic survey conducted during two consecutive agricultural seasons (1989 and 1990) on 844 farms of the Office du Niger. The null hypothesis of the absence of technical inefficiency effects was rejected. A supportive ‘institutional environment’ and a coherent organisation of land use were the best correlates of technically efficiency. The social environment was also found to contribute to technical efficiency of the paddy farmers: within the village, the greater the degree of ethnic cohesion, the greater the efficiency of the farmers. Health status of households had an effect in that ‘healthy’ families tended to be more technically efficient than ‘unhealthy’ ones. Farmers with more extensive sorghum cultivation were less efficient as paddy farmers. These results may help agricultural policy makers formulate strategies. Technical efficiency may be improved by intensifying agricultural training regarding one specific crop and, through the control of parasitic diseases which place a burden on family households. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1997